


Wilde Spirit (The Karmic Shuffle)

by raynos



Series: Wilde Spirit [4]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Folklore, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Supernatural Elements, Zistopia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6782491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raynos/pseuds/raynos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being framed for a murder in his speakeasy Wilde Times 50 years ago, Nick Wilde has lingered on as a spirit. Judy Hopps, an exorcist set on finding out more about the past, is his chance of righting past wrongs, and uncovering the true cause of why collars were abolished.</p><p>Recipe for this fic:<br/>Take the original movie concepts - collars, Golden Palm Hotel, Honey Badger, Morris Koslov, the 1960s, Judy chasing Nick through Little Rodentia, with more to come. Add to the actual Zootopia movie. Blend well, with a helping of the supernatural to bring the flavours together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Emotions (that's taken me over)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic takes place in a timeline where the original plot with the collars took place in the 1960s, the events of Zootopia are in present day and this fic takes place immediately after Zootopia. Nick Wilde has been around since the 1960s by way of becoming a ghost.
> 
> This fic can be read as a standalone, though if you're curious about how Zootopia would have been affected by this AU check out the prequel [Exorcist Blues](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6567649).

Nick's repeated visits to Cliffside didn't make him like the place any better. He hadn't liked it when he and Judy visited the place to find Mr Otterton and were chased by guard wolves for their efforts, and he didn't like it any better now.

The top three of his numerous issues with the abandoned hospital at Cliffside were easy. For one, the abandoned hospital was over running water. Under normal circumstances that should have been a no no for a spirit like him. Every time he entered the building, he felt as if he were gutted out, aura scooped out of him until he was a pawpsicle mould with the pawpsicle yanked out. But normal circumstances did not account for Judy Hopps, who didn't do anything the way exorcists like her should and had no qualms about sharing her aura with a fox spirit who would do anything he liked with it. Nick knew Chief Bogo expected him to misuse his privileges, and that perversely Nick toeing the line was akin to waving a red flag in front of a, heh, bull.

Nick was a perverse creature, and so he toed the line and made sure to grin every time he caught Chief Buffalo Butt looking.

The other reason why he was being an unusually good little pet ghostie and doing what the other exorcists apart from Judy wanted was because when he was tapping on Judy's aura, he had a very strange sense that the water flowing beneath Cliffside was having some kind of pissing contest with her. He wasn't just saying that because of the pun. Judy had nearly drowned in Cliffside's river a few months back when tracking Mr Otterton, and it seemed the water had taken her continued survival personally.

So water that wanted to drown mammals was the second reason why Nick didn't like Cliffside. Since for once Judy wasn't in trouble because she had gone looking for it, Nick did his job as a good guardian and made sure he had her back here. Not that he didn't in the other situations. There was just a lot more grumbling in the other situations.

The third was that somehow Nick and Judy kept coming back to Cliffside despite not particularly liking the place. The latest was the entire operation that had the Zootopia Exorcist Department aka ZED generally in a tizzy and specifically in a tizzy at this particular location. This was the operation to reseal the Original 10, the spirits rumoured to have broken the karmic cycle.

Since Nick was still around a good 50 years after his death and not in whatever afterlife there was, he supposed that the Original 10 were a good enough explanation as any. The more cynical part of Nick did sometimes wonder, since the Original 10 had all met their end at a protest over collars.

The ZED didn't seem to share Nick's doubts and were going all out to seal the Original 10. The reasons for Nick's dislike for Cliffside were also the reasons why it was an excellent place to seal these spirits. The water would wear away at their aura, and with no means of replacing it like Nick had they would remain under for a very long time. The hunger water was also far too happy to keep them suppressed.

Unfortunately to get the spirits to Cliffside and seal them was a long and complicated operation. Right now the operation required Nick to stand in the middle of a complicated array of wards and shields, the workings of which he disingenuously pretended he was not using his charm to help along and genuinely did not understand. He wasn't Judy after all. If he wanted to know he just had to turn and ask, since Judy was standing next to him in the array that had been spread across the entire hospital courtyard. Her wary and alert stance explained why she was here apart from lending her aura to Nick. She had been behind the design of many of the wards, which coupled with her skill of enhanced senses made her responsible for watching the array to make sure it stayed intact. Her enhanced senses would make her the first to know if something went wrong.

Nick was not as sure whether he wanted the operation to succeed.

His ambivalence must have bled through in what little aura he had, because Judy squeezed the paw she was holding. "Are you OK?"

"Am I enjoying being the only spirit around to keep the Original 10 from the living world? Absolutely, wouldn't have it any other way."

"The other guardians didn't have help from their exorcists to cross the water." Nick thought it was a reflection of how Judy was much better than the other exorcists, but he didn't comment. Judy was already barreling on to the next topic. "If this reminds you too much of your grave - "

"You'd think I'd remember if there were that many wards around me."

Judy had a way of cutting right to the heart of things. "ZED's always used the same seals on any spirits they believed to be dark."

That was another of the many things that troubled Nick about this operation. Having been on the inside of ZED's sealed boxes for dark spirits, he wasn't sure if he would wish such a fate on anyone, even the Original 10. He was sure they wouldn't have broken the karmic cycle if they'd known it would land them in a permanent prison.

But he also didn't feel strongly enough about it to want to break 50 year old wards. So he said to Judy, "Are you really worried about this only after we've sealed nine spirits? Carrots your concern astounds me."

Judy's flippant tone was almost on par with his. "Oh I didn't want to come across as smothering to someone who's just helping themselves to my aura."

"You should have thought about it before you offered your aura up like a drink fountain at a buffet. Do you think we could get Diet Coke flavour in this? I need to watch my figure."

"Wilde! Hopps!" Chief Bogo bellowed. "Concentrate! The last of the 10 is almost here. Or do I need to impress on you the urgency of today's operation?"

"Here he goes again," Nick muttered, knowing that Judy's superior hearing could pick it up when the Chief could not.

"The last time the Original 10 were active, they exclusively murdered living mammals. We cannot afford to let them get loose, especially when they have tricks such as drying up the rivers they've been buried under."

Chief Boogaloo's lecture made Nick very glad his grave under an extremely dry river bed was not widely known. Here, only Judy knew his secret, and she was on the same side as him.

Well, except for the part where she said, "Sir, yes sir. We understand."

"Teacher's pet."

"Only to save your fluffy tail. Tails."

"You know you like them." He was rather proud of his second tail, seeing that it had come with the boost to his skill set fox spirits received every 50 years. He flicked both his tails across Judy's arm, but she had gone stiff. Nick only felt the echoing thrum in Judy's aura when the van containing the last spirit drove through the second set of Judy's wards. It was showtime.

Judy drew her sword just in case, though she kept the blade pointed down. Nick pulled on a pair of white gloves he had for special occasions such as this. It was circles and shields only for now to protect the exorcists themselves, with Francine, Rhinowitz and Delgato channeling their aura to the shields. Nick checked the flow of energy. "Rhinowitz, dial it up on your side."

Rhinowitz had bitched about listening to a guardian spirit the first three times before Judy laid into him about how his energy was messing up her work. Bogo too had let Judy go ahead with her verbal barrage, which had been tacit approval in itself. That was why Rhinowitz just channeled more of his aura into the array, and Nick also bit his tongue about how the energy was clumping. Instead, he used his skills boosted by Judy's aura to smooth things out and make sure the energy was evenly distributed across the active parts of the array.

Then Wolford and Grizzoli entered the courtyard carrying the box between them. Even seven seals down and through several shields, Nick could feel the aura of the lynx spirit contained within. Thank God he had smoothed the energy of all the shields. There was something about the aura and the way the box was rattling that put Nick's teeth edge.

It seemed Chief Bogo agreed, because he'd shifted his grip on his own sword and slotted it into array.

The burst of aura that was added had Nick blinking spots of light away. He knew the Chief didn't have a guardian, and now he knew why. There was no give in the Chief's aura that allowed for the type of cooperation Nick and Judy had, and Nick could count with one finger the number of spirits he knew with that kind of aura to match. He really didn't want them to ever meet each other though. When Nick was done with that chain of thought, the wards to boost the shields were up.

"There's something wrong with the box," said Judy.

Nick took Judy's paw - he was not going anywhere near Chief Bogo's aura, his role in making things go smoothly be damned - and let her have back some of her aura. If there was anything wrong, she could identify what it was much faster than he could. He really didn't understand the array that well.

What Judy said next had nothing to do with the array. I hear a lot of tiny metal things."

Nick's ears went back in immediate distaste. "Who put _pins_ in that box?"

"Why, are pins too much for your delicate spirit tastes?" Wolford snapped.

Nick would have reminded Wolford that pins were a kind of torture device for spirits, was he _sleeping_ at the Academy, if Judy had not cut in. "No one has opened the boxes since they were sealed." It was a bit of rational calm in the tense situation.

But that didn't change the fact that the box contained an angry spirit, whose aura now made Nick think of a swarm of bees. An angry black swarm of bees. Each step the box bearer took made the box clink and the aura inside spike.

Finally they reached the center of the array. "Last check on seals," Wolford prompted, and he and Grizzoli proceeded to check the seals in front of the rest of the ZED. Their checks were thorough, Nick had to admit. They tested each of the seven seals in turn with their aura, checking the flow to see if it was right.

"Placing the box," said Wolford.

Their mistake was dropping the box in place. Just because they'd done it for the other nine spirits did not mean they could do it for a spirit buried with pins.

With her senses opened to spot any shifts in the array and without Nick's aura as a buffer, Judy immediately picked up on the pain and anguish the lynx spirit was going through now. Nick sacrificed a bit of aura and concentration to go solid and give her a brief nudge to an upright position again. She steadied herself by adding her own shield, but he still didn't like how her pupils were blown wide and black.

"His anger's bleeding over to the other spirits," she said. "If they get agitated enough, they could break their seals."

"Not if we do something about it," Chief Bogo grit out. "Wolford! Grizzoli! Step back and power the wards. Those on shields, reverse the direction to keep that spirit in. Wilde, keep the array steady. The rest of you watching the nine already here, if those boxes so much as twitch you bring your aura down on them. Understood?"

"Sir yes sir!" the exorcists around Bogo chorused. Despite not being an exorcist, Nick winked and gave Bogo a lazy salute that had the buffalo rolling his eyes.

Wolford and Grizzoli got into position, changing the energy flow in the array. The array resisted the change in direction at first, but a flick of Nick's hand had the energy going through just fine. The three on the shields flipped the shield's direction as they had the last nine times. Perhaps the tenth time was the charm.

Or perhaps the tenth time was when the spirit in the box caught the shifts in the array, figured out how it worked, and added its own aura to the mix. Damn lynxes and their vibrational perception. The shifts in the array were like flies struggling in a cobweb, letting the lynx spirit in the middle of it all know where its prey was.

And like icing on the proverbial cake, the array was not designed to take the aura of any spirit at all. Even Nick had been just nudging energy already in the array to go the right way, since crossing the river meant he had little enough aura of his own to make any difference. The exorcists had been counting on the water and the array to keep the aura of any spirit down. Whoopsie doo, seemed that wasn't the case, and they were all going to pay dearly for it.

Judy probably knew these overwhelming odds even better than Nick did. But Judy didn't know when to tap out. She slammed her own aura via her sword into the array, and started to rework the wards.

It was a long shot at outwitting the lynx spirit, but Nick specialised in making long shots happen. rather than hand more aura back to Judy, he directly released their meshed aura into the array for Judy to use as needed.

To the ZED's credit they took the changes in stride. Wolford and Grizzoli kept the shields boosted, while Francine and Delgato kept the shields closing in on the lynx spirit. Nick let the last of his borrowed aura go, taking him out of the fight. It was up the exorcists to shift the array enough to keep the lynx in.

If it had been the lynx spirit alone that might have worked. Judy had looped the array to send the lynx's aura going in circles. But the lynx was no longer channeling aura in the already saturated array. It was channeling emotion. It avoided the easy targets, like Judy with her senses still held open to trace changes in the array. Or maybe the exorcists weren't the targets at all.

Nick didn't understand arrays, but he did know what effect emotion had on the aura from experience. Like raising hackles, emotions pulled out parts of aura that spirits, and Nick in particular, usually kept hidden. He felt his teeth growing longer, his claws growing sharper, his senses growing hungrier. The lynx was letting all the spirits know it was time to put Grandma aside and go Big Bad Wolf.

But Judy had never been Little Red Riding Hood. Her personal shield expanded over Nick before he could show teeth. Judy remembered what most exorcists forgot - a shield wasn't just for keeping things out; it was also for protecting whatever was within. The shared protection was the buffer Nick needed to keep from showing the darker side of his skills.

The Original 10 didn't have the luxury of a similar buffer and probably didn't want it. Sealed away for 50 years, with the prospect of being sealed away for many more, the lynx's anger fanned their own. Their aura roiled against the insides of the shield holding them back, looking for somewhere to go. The exorcists pushed back, determined not to give any ground.

The trouble with standing your ground was that you had to be like the ground - solid and immovable. That was what Chief Bogo was and Nick definitely wasn't and Nick preferred it that way. Nick knew what he was good at and he liked his deflecting and changeable techniques. Rhinowitz however was neither and yet he opted to push.

For his trouble his aura was clumped into a tiny tight ball and tossed back at him, forcing him to withdraw his energy from the array. Through the gap left behind by his aura, the aura of the Original 10 seeped through the array and stained everything black. The snicker snack of their aura ground against the shields of those gathered, plucked scratched at things they came across, and set the entire array rattling around the exorcists.

The vibrations were exactly what the lynx spirit needed to find the next set of arrays meant to seal the 10 spirits at once.

The trouble with arrays was that they were a pattern of shields and wards put together to get a particular effect, assuming you went with what the designer wanted and activated all of it. But someone that was spiritually aware enough would be able to pick and choose which part of the array to activate. Someone like a spirit that had had decades to mull over how it would break free once it had the chance. Someone like the lynx spirit.

It skipped the shields and went straight for the parts of the array meant to link the Original 10 together to use their aura against them. Another spirit followed its lead, followed by another. And another.

Chief Bogo swung his sword and snapped the connection between the array and the spirit like a rubber band. The energy rebounded against the spirit it came from, shoving all of it back into its box. Following Chief Bogo's example, the rest of the exorcists followed suit.

It wasn't going to be enough. Chief Bogo had broken the circle formed by the 10, but there were many other stable shapes that lent themselves to channeling power. Of all the shapes, a triangle wasn't a bad shape for an array to end up in.

Before the triangle could be broken, the three remaining spirits activated their new array. Seals burst apart on the three boxes and the aura within them overflowed, blotting out the staff, Cliffside, and most of the other exorcists. It made Nick want to sidle away and find a safe place.

But Nick could see Judy. He followed the line of her sight to find that in the middle of the miasma a lynx shaped figure had appeared. If Nick squinted, he could make out the mask of a raccoon, the flipper of a sea lion. He was sure Judy's enhanced senses let her see more. Yet she seemed to be fixated on the eyes of the lynx, flashing gold in the darkness. Her breaths were coming out short and quick. On her cheek, three claw marks started to glow.

Nick fought against every instinct to flee and broke their stare by getting in between.

The lynx spirit spared a glance that flicked quickly from Nick's ears to the tips of his two tails, then turned its eyes away. The darkness dispersed, as did the three spirits from everyone's sight.

Nick turned away from the exorcists who were recovering from their shock to focus on the aftermath. It was Nick's turn to ask Judy, "Are you OK?"

The scars on Judy's face were no longer apparent, but her aura was still dim and diminished. "We weren't able to keep the Original 10 from the living world."

Yet again Judy had cut to the heart of things. Nick did not offer any platitudes that she could see through, and stood with her in their little oasis within her shield.


	2. (I can't get no) Satisfaction

Now Savanna Central was where Nick was at, and he was determined to spend the day there after the terrible night before.

There were lots of things to like about Savanna Central. There was no gushing rivers in the business district as there were at Cliffside. The throngs of people didn't include exorcists, especially today. Yes the sun was bright and glaring to a spirit like Nick, but since that was the complete opposite of Cliffside Nick was fine and dandy and couldn't be any better with that, particularly since there was a blessed lack of dark spirit causing mayhem. At Savanna Central, Nick was surrounded by the comfortable and the familiar, including this mammal.

"Finn my man!"

Finnick looked up from the pawpsicle he was handing over and pocketed the cash so fast it made it seem like he was the one with the skill of making things disappear. Nick was professionally impressed. "I'm not your anything," Finnick snapped, already serving the next lemming in the queue. "What brings you here?"

"I'm hurt. Mortally wounded. Just a few days and you've already forgotten your granddad?"

"I've already got my jumbo pop so I don't need a grand anything. Why're you here when you look like a gust of wind could blow you away?"

There were a few people that Nick couldn't trick, and Finnick just so happened to be one of them. Nick gave up the friendly banter and clicked his fingers to call up a glamour.

"Out of juice huh?" Finnick's usual gravelly voice instead of the sweet dulcet tones Nick was aiming for was proof. "What about your rabbit?"

"She's out too." Judy had wanted to press on and find the renegade spirits, but she'd fallen asleep as soon as she'd sat down. Apparently her body was smarter than the rest of her. Nick had left her dozing in her bed with the radio on.

Finnick jerked a thumb at the shade under a nearby tree. "Go sit over there and quit holding up the line then you jerk."

"Ah my grand kit is so nice to me, I'm so overwhelmed I could hug him - "

"Don't make me regret being nice to you Wilde!"

Chucking, Nick headed over to the spot Finn had pointed out and made himself comfortable. His walk about town had helped clear his head, and that he'd proved to himself the spirits from Cliffside were lying low was just icing on the cake. Blueberry flavoured icing. Now Nick could assure Judy with more confidence, let his guard down, and think of nothing more than a good time to flinch a pawpsicle when Finn wasn't looking -

"One pawpsicle for the Mister please!"

They didn't usually get kids at lunch hour in the business district, which was why Nick cracked open an eye to see who it was. He didn't expect to see the lynx spirit hovering by the leopard cub's shoulder.

"It's my death anniversary," the lynx deadpanned.

"The hell it is." Nick and Finn were the true inventors of that particular hustle, and there was no way Nick was going to be fooled by this feeble imitation that was breaking all sorts of copyrights. It was only when the lynx spirit fixed golden eyes on him that Nick realised it might not have been the greatest idea to engage a spirit that still had its aura when his own was at an all-time low. Well, talking it out was always a skill Nick had, aura or not. "What are you doing here? Looking to see how much Savanna Central changed when you were away? I thought Tundratown would be your gig instead." Now that Nick had gotten close enough, he steered the leopard cub towards Finn. Finn would take care of him and Nick would take care of the lynx.

"It might not be my death anniversary, but it is a moment of celebration. That is why I am here. Celebrating."

The lynx spirit did look a lot better now - less indistinct black silhouette with eyes and ears randomly stuck on, more lynx shaped with shoulders squared and posture ramrod straight. Pity his suit was baggy. "In that penguin suit?"

"Strange that you mock me for my suit when you're wearing one yourself."

"What can I say, I make this look good Pointy Ears. Why don't we go somewhere else so I can give you some pointers."

"You're distracting me. And you seem afraid. Why?"

Nick's aura must be really out of juice if his charm wasn't even managing a simple deflection. Time for the kid gloves to come off then. "City Hall is just that way and you had a really swell time when you came by 50 years ago. Riots and murder and breaking reincarnation cycles isn't my thing though."

"How do you know? Were you there with your back up against the wall? Or did you just accept your collar like a good Pred?"

Nick tugged his suit straighter. "You think you know me Mister Ear Tufts?" I only just saw your break out of a sealed box yesterday, I don't recall we had time to talk."

"But you can only be what you already are. You're a fox spirit that has been wronged, and your dual tails prove you've been around as long as I have. Why else are you still here?"

"Because you broke the reincarnation cycle buddy. Or did you think the exorcists locked you in a box for fun? Look I don't have to take this from someone that enjoys yanking the souls out of mammals."

"That wasn't what happened. Ask your rabbit."

"What?" There had to be some complicated ploy behind the lynx's words, because Nick didn't see how Judy featured in their conversation at all.

"Ask your rabbit."

If the lynx spirit had wanted to get a rise out of Nick, he'd gotten it. Nick knew his teeth had gone sharp and thin as he demanded, "What does Judy have to do with whatever happened 50 years ago? You keep away from her, or I'll - "

Someone tossed a sign through Nick's head.

Nick had gone all ghostly and could walk through things, but he preferred to do that by his own choice, not by having things chucked at him. So he winced when a pawpsicle stick was tossed through his head next. Finn stood at the ready to throw more.

"You really need to work on your aim, that was off by a lot of inches if you were aiming for the lynx."

"Wake up Wilde!"

Nick blinked awake. He wasn't in front of Finnick's stall, Finnick wasn't protecting a leopard cub, and most importantly there was no lynx spirit in sight.

The signboard through the head had been real though. Nick threw his arm over his face.

"Thought you didn't like going toothy." From the sound of his voice, Finn was probably staying all the way over at his stall. Nick didn't like the idea of spooking Finnick like that. Nick had practically watched Finn grow up, and though Finnick wanted to be his own fox now Nick would still think of him as that little fox cub whose dreams and personality were always bigger than he was.

Nick tried not to just disappear in mortification into the shadows under the tree. "I was just dreaming."

"Must have been some dream to make your aura go dark like that."

A perfect pun to lighten the mood came to Nick, and he had to peek out to deliver it, "I was dreaming of chasing rabbits."

Finnick gave his predictable snort. He hadn't really bought into the guardian spirit-living ward arrangement ZED tried to push, and didn't understand why Nick stopped agreeing with him when he'd met Judy. "Then I don't need you mooning here and scaring the customers. Go look for your rabbit."

That was probably a good idea. If Nick was going dark in his sleep, Judy was better equipped to handle it. But.

"Oh no, I forgot my wallet. I guess I'll have to take the Spirit Express. But wait! I don't have enough aura too. Please lend me some of yours?"

"No."

Finnick, ever the hard hearted mammal. Nick didn't desist, coming over just to drape himself over Finnick's shoulders. "Pretty please? It'll be like lending me change for the bus."

"Lending aura is nothing like change for the bus! I'm not letting you feed on me."

Nick slid off and let himself slump all the way onto the ground. "Then I'll just have to lay here and die. Again."

Nick's skills let him catch without looking whatever Finnick had tossed his way. He sat up to see what Finn had thrown and found it was one of Flash's charms.

"It's a fucking useless lucky charm, I nearly got thrown out on my ear when buying the jumbo pop. You can take your own aura from there."

Nick's own aura was a good jump start. He busied himself with the charm as Finnick sold a few more pawpsicles.

"Finn?" The fennec fox did not turn but his ears tilted in Nick's direction, meaning he was listening. "If you see any spirit going toothy as I was, just get out of there OK?"

Finnick added cash to his cash box, and even locked it before he said, "I've heard of Daddy kink but your Granddaddy kink is just sick. I think you need to see a shrink before you get your concern all over everything."

"Have you been eating too many pawpsicles? You really suck right now."

"Just reincarnate already Wilde, I'm sick of seeing your ugly mug."

"It is not ugly and I'm taking it somewhere where it will be more appreciated." Nick waved over his shoulder and headed towards the ley.

Living mammals passed through the ley and just experienced a boost in their senses. To them, it was just coincidence that the ley lines overlapped with roads. Spirits could use leys to their fullest extent. Without the added mass of a body, spirits could let the ley lines deliver them to wherever they wanted to be.

Nick hopped on the ley and was at 5th in a rush of light. He hopped off before the ley could take him further. From there it was a pleasant meander to Judy's apartment block. It was called Grand Pangolin Apartments, which was a case of mis-advertising since the only thing Nick could begrudgingly acknowledge as Grand was the "Grand" in the name of the apartment. There wasn't even a lift, just rickety stairs Nick entirely skipped in favour of floating. He was a ghost, he could take advantage of floating.

A few residents stared at him as he passed. They needn't have worried. Even though he wasn't with his ward right now, Judy had only invited Nick past two thresholds - the one belonging to the apartment block and her own apartment. He couldn't go anywhere without the backlash of breaking a threshold. And he wasn't interested in any apartment but the one he went into now without even bothering with the door.

Judy's apartment was a one glance apartment - at once glance Nick could see everything in the apartment, including Judy bent over the radio.

"You were supposed to stay in bed." The radio had been on the desk against the opposite wall from the bed.

Judy's ears were still flopped down when she looked up at Nick. "Am I in bed now? Yes, yes I am."

"And I'm supposed to believe the radio flew over by itself." At least she'd laid her sword aside; it hung by its strap from one of her bed posts, at rest when its owner wasn't. Nick passed it as he made his way towards Judy.

"It's been 50 years, we've had time to make flying radios."

"Funny. I always thought we'd aim for flying pigs first."

"Pigs already fly. They take planes just like any other mammal."

"Why thank you Miss Literal, I had no idea." Nick opted against the only chair pushed in against the desk, and sat down on the bed now he was sure he wasn't going to sink through it. Leaning against the wall gave him a good view of Judy's family portrait stretched above the desk. "So what's on the radio?"

Judy leaned against the section of wall just next to Nick's and stretched her legs out. Their shoulders brushed as Judy settled into the new position. "None of the exorcists on duty have seen anything."

"The streets are quiet too." At least his jaunt about town had been good for something.

"I don't get it. Shouldn't someone have seen them?"

"There might be good reasons for that." Not knowing if he'd actually seen the lynx spirit or had just been dreaming was one. If other mammals, whether dead or living, had Nick's experience, they wouldn't be too keen on reporting. Nick himself wasn't going to share what he'd seen until he had more time to think about it. "Like they say, no news is good news, especially when that means there's no murder and mayhem."

"If only we could really be sure if they weren't up to anything."

"Then you should head back to bed Carrots. You won't be able to scry tomorrow if you don't recover."

"I would, but I just keep waking up." Judy rubbed at her eyes and Nick almost asked if she'd seen the lynx. But the same instinct that let him keep arrays running told him it wasn't time yet. "I was thinking of dropping by HQ. You can stay here if you're tired."

"And leave you all alone?" Nick clutched at his heart with all the fake theatrics he could muster. "How could I be a good guardian if I did that?"

Judy chuckled as she punched him in the arm. At least her ears were lifting. "It's only HQ!"

"What's the plan?"

"Let's find the records of the Original 10. Maybe we'll find some hints about where our missing spirits have gone, especially if like most spirits they are drawn to things significant to them."

It sounded restful enough, and it felt right to stick by Judy for now. "You'll need a bit of luck then."

He tossed her the lucky charm and at least she was recovered enough to catch it without looking. Her ears were properly up now, a good gauge her mood had lifted too. "I figured the ingredients were good for something."

"It's not fox charmed, but sloth charmed has its uses." She pocketed the charm. 

"That was not what you said the last time you needed Flash's help to trace Mr Otterton."

"Oh shush."

 

"Oh. Em. Goodness. Judy Hopps what are you doing back here? Even the Chief is out."

"Hi Clawhauser. Any news?"

The cheetah wagged a finger at her. "You should know that answer as well as I as I do, I know you have a radio and you've been hearing me natter on it all morning."

"She has," Nick agreed. "She tuned in to your beautiful voice all morning, and now we're here in person to hear more."

"Nick! You're looking solid."

"You can be Mr Literal to go with Miss Literal here. What does a mammal have to do to get some metaphors around here?"

"You've been hoarding them all Nick, the rest of us just have to make do."

"Alright then, I'll keep the metaphors coming and you work on the news."

"Talking about news," said Judy. "Are you sure there isn't any?"

"Hey buddy," Clawhauser leaned in to ask the mouse spirit on his counter. "You know anything that happened in the last half hour that I don't?"

"Nope!" The mouse squeaked before disappearing to make its next delivery.

"There you have it Judy, no hide or hair of the three elusive spirits."

Judy gave a sheepish shrug that would give even an actual sheep a run for its money. "It was worth a shot?"

"Now, you can't just be here to ask me for news you could have gotten from the radio." Clawhauser leaned back with his arms folded above his considerable tummy. "If you two are here to run any rituals, as your friend I'm going to have to stop you right now. You're off duty for a reason."

Judy beamed up at Clawhauser. "Actually we were thinking of browsing the Records Room."

"What she said. Simple, easy, probably would be even easier if you let the Librarian know we're coming by." Nick didn't have to try too hard here. Clawhauser was made of much softer stuff than the Chief, and Nick wasn't talking about Clawhauser's chub.

"Oh alright. I'll let the Librarian know to expect you," said Clawhauser right on cue. "Who wants this one?" He asked the messenger mice currently passing by his desk.

One of them waved. "I'm in if you do the boost!" 

"There ya go little fellow," Clawhauser chuckled as he tapped the mouse spirit on the nose. The spirit zipped past whooping as he tapped on the cheetah's speed. "If you're in there for too long Judy I'll send one of the messenger mice after you."

"How about sending them down if you hear any news?"

Clawhauser shook one of his many cereal boxes at Judy. "Stop straining the limits of not working! Shoo! Go before I change my mind about even Records!"

Judy fled with a laugh and ears that were staying properly up now. Nick gave Clawhauser a thumbs up on the latter, and left only after Clawhauser returned with an exaggerated salute.

 

Lulled by Judy flipping pages, Nick was drowsing with his tails tossed over his snout. He was comfortable, he wasn't anywhere near the records and now he knew better than to refer to the Librarian as a monkey, so he didn't know why the Librarian was hanging around - literally by his fingertips from the end of one of the shelves - and glaring at Nick with beady eyes.

Nick had briefly detoured into wondering if the Librarian could hang upside down by his toes when Judy dumped a stack of files next to Nick. "The files of Lyndon Lynxington, the spirit that go away," she declared.

"Are you actually allowed to talk?" Nick whispered back.

"Sir, could we have a discussion here?"

The orangutan handed over a discussion sign. Nick swore a banana also changed hands. Judy placed the sign on the table they were using and settled in with the first folder, laying it flat on the table to read. "It says here Lynxington was born in Zootopia."

Nick burrowed further under his tails until the outside world was nicely blotted out. "Oh joy. From then on it's just going to be the death of Lyndon Lynxington, followed by the names of the mammals he offed, doom gloom enough angst to fill the room."

Right on cue Judy went into lecture mode. "We have to do this. The lynx spirit doesn't have to haunt a place. He'll find himself drawn to anything that has significance to him, even other mammals."

"It's work and I don't have to enjoy it." Nick declared. When Judy didn't continue with her usual lecture on the benefits of work, Nick shifted his tails to peep out. "Hopps?"

Judy was staring at the open folder with shock so clear Nick didn't need her aura to gauge her mood. He reached out and spun the folder to face him.

Judy had been looking at the list of mammals killed by Lynxington after becoming a spirit. Nick sat up, prepared to offer comfort over whoever Judy had known on the list. He shifted to the names and found that printed at the very top of the list was the name "Judy Hopps".

A shiver ran down Nick's spine as he read that name. He could almost hear the lynx spirit say, as if it wasn't just a recollection, "Ask your rabbit."

Nick shoved the folder as far away as possible. "So you're another junior huh? My dad also named me after him. Folks these days have no originality."

Judy wasn't responding to the joke, too intent on staring at the file even though it was on the other end of the table.

"I thought your mother would have better taste than you name you after someone she read in an article. Unless she's also a Judy? Bonnie Judy Hopps? Judy Bonnie Hopps?"

"Nick." She'd called his name before, but even when she went looking for him at his grave under the bridge after those long torturous months after the press conference she had never sounded so much in despair. "She was a Hopps. It can't have been a coincidence. My family has to be involved in this."

"You can't be the only family of Hoppses in the world."

"This close to Zootopia? We may as well be."

"Rabbit. Are you aware how ridiculous you sound right now?"

"Well maybe I'll call my parents and you'll see how ridiculous _you_ sound right now - "

As if summoned by Judy pulling out her phone, the Librarian came over, pointed to the sign that prohibited phone calls, and bared his teeth meaningfully. It didn't matter only an orangutan's incisors were sharp and pointy - Nick and Judy quickly looked away.

Judy wasn't giving up. "I'll message them and you'll see how ridiculous you are right now."

"Well fine. Let's say we follow your logic - " Nick kept talking over Judy's indignant exclamation. "And say your family also had a rabbit police officer, which might be a teeny bit more common than rabbit exorcists. Shouldn't someone in your family have brought this up before? Why are you getting this from a dingy file in Records?"

He expected angry splutters or vehement protests. A very tiny part was holding out for disgruntled acknowledgment, though he knew Judy better than that. Embarrassment to the extent that Judy tried to hide behind ears flopped over her face hadn't even entered the picture. "You know the joke about multiplying like rabbits? So the family size caps in the 60s were more loosely enforced, and rabbit families were a lot, uh, larger and not as close knit as they are now." Then, as if to cover up what she had just said, she tacked on. "But we have really good records and if my parents check I'm sure we'll know for sure if this rabbit cop was a relative!" The forced look of her grin suggested she was trying to convince herself.

Nick had already seen the current size of Judy's family and imagining anything larger was taking up most of Nick's attention, never mind the other implications. Finally he settled with. "I'm not sure why Bunnyburrow isn't overrun with spirits then."

Judy seemed almost relieved he wasn't commenting on anything else. "That's where mediums come in! My mom has been able to guide 100% of the departed to the other side. Only those who really want to would become ancestors."

"Like the Holy Hopps trinity and your favourite Great-Uncle."

"Oh shush." That was a little more like the Judy Nick knew. He decided to give things a little nudge.

"Did your family get back to you?"

"No, not yet." Judy checked her phone just to be sure. When she looked back to the table, she sighed. "Nick."

"What?"

She held out her hand. "The file please."

"Do I look like I know what goes on in this place? Ask the Librarian."

"Do I want to make the Librarian dislike you even more by having to explain you lost the file? No, No I would not." Judy ran her hands over her eyes. "Look, I have to get to the bottom of this. If the Hopps were there when the karmic cycle was broken, I have to make sure we take appropriate responsibility for it."

"Right. That there is an assumption. You don't know for sure you have to take responsibility for it. You have another two spirits to research, why don't you leave Alliterative Aliases and Same Surname Senior to me until your family gets back on possible distant relatives."

"Are you hiding more than just the file from me?" She snapped her fingers. "Didn't you tell Great Uncle Albert you had a run in with a rabbit before?"

When Nick got back to Bunnyburrow he was going to have Words with that spirit, war veteran or not. "It's been 50 years. I'm a little fuzzy on the details but I think the rabbit that slapped handcuffs on me was a Rosie or Julie Hips, I'm quite sure about the surname because she did have the hips to match - Whiskers what is with that look?"

Judy's eyebrows had crept almost all the way up to her ears. "So it's hips that does it for you? Does that make you a hip male?"

"Why Exorcist Fluff, would you rather I admitted to the handcuffs instead?"

"I'm not sure you should be sharing such details with a young impressionable mind like mine."

"Why are you that interested in my preference Carrots? I feel I should be concerned about my virtue here." He gave a mock shudder. "Oh no. It's true. Rabbits do only think about multiplying."

"Your asides did not make the name sound like what a decent rabbit family would give their kids. I think your age is showing in the form of Alzheimer's grandpa." Judy picked up the next file. "You can have the file and see if it jogs your memory."

Judy did not add for now, but Nick heard it anyway. They were good with both the spoken and unspoken things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be up in a week sometime over the next weekend, hope you're looking forward to it!
> 
> In the meantime, I'll be talking about some of the concept art that influenced the narrative choices over at [my tumblr](http://raynos.tumblr.com/), please pop by if you're curious.


	3. California Dreamin'

Not many living mammals knew of Nick's grave. He had to admit it was tough to spot an underwater grave under a bridge in the quietest part of the city. Whoever had buried Nick had done a thorough job. Or had done a thorough job until the aura-dampening water had dried up.

That was the only part of Nick's grave that had changed. Nick honestly didn't know how Mr Big had found him the first time, or why no one else had managed that feat. For now, Nick used the seclusion to help him identify those who came by their footsteps. Finnick stomped as if he could beat the ground into submission but didn't have much weight to him. Back when Nick was still running with Mr Big, Kozlov would sometimes make slow ponderous steps when he came by. Judy however had quick light steps, as if it were spring flowers and grass underfoot rather than the dry river bed, now baked to dust by the high noon sun. It was the last set that Nick felt now.

Nick manifested from his grave once Judy passed into the shadows under the bridge. Yesterday Judy had been distinctly cool after his trick with the file, and he wanted to get a start on making amends.

In another shift from yesterday, Judy was in full exorcist attire now - a dark blue high collared shirt with slacks in the same shade. Her ceremonial sword was slung across her back as a symbol of her office, accompanied for today by a clinking bag full of ritual items. Her cape, covering only one shoulder like a toreador, and her sash at her waist, from which many pouches were hung, were the same light blue as her aura. Nick was glad to see her aura was back at full strength. The full moon last night had been good for something.

Unfortunately that meant Judy had the energy to launch into her pet topic. "I really think you should move."

"It's a grave, not a house Carrots."

"You deserve better - "

"This is a grave for thieves and murderers." All their work on relocating the Original 10 had only driven that point home, seeing Nick's grave, the old graves and the new graves considered for the Original 10, all had varying themes of "water" and "bridge". "And we all know I'm not a thief or a murderer."

"Is that where you tell me since we both know it doesn't matter?"

"Probably. How many times have we had this argument again?"

Judy struggled not to blurt out the answer, because she knew that showed she'd been keeping tabs. Nick knew she wouldn't be Judy Hopps if she wasn't organised even in this. "13," she finally admitted.

"Wow, go us. Well, thanks to my shabby grave I'm feeling a lot better now." He thought his aura looked good today, if he might say so himself. He didn't actually know what state his body was in, but resting in his grave did help his aura. He'd needed it for all the work he had done yesterday, which he now handed to Judy with a flourish. "So I got you this: Addresses of places Lyndon Lynxington could turn up in, known associates that are still on this plane, and their friends, just in case. You're very welcome Carrots."

"Who are you and what have you done with the real Nicholas Wilde?" Judy teased, even though her eyes had lit up at the thickness of the stack.

"It's a one time deal only, and you've just got the last piece available. Don't let this get around, it'll ruin my reputation."

"This is good stuff." Judy's foot thumped the ground as she flipped through the report. "What are we waiting for let's go!"

"You can't get the goods without paying Whiskers. I think I deserve a reward."

"A reward huh. What were you thinking of?" asked Judy as she tucked Nick's report into the bag of ritual items.

"Come along and you'll see."

She followed Nick out of the riverbed, clamping up a grassy slope to the road proper. Nick knew this route by heart, let the road call him onwards to the abandoned warehouse at the end of it.

Judy ducked inside the warehouse together with Nick. "Looks like the same rickety thing inside and out."

"Is there actually something the Great Judy Hopps doesn't know? Do I get to teach Spirit Powers 101 today?"

"Guest lecture only, don't get too comfy."

"Trust me Carrots. After this you'll ask for repeat performances." Nick found a nice clear spot, and tapped his foot twice.

The drumming woke the earth, stirred the air and echoed off the walls. The place thrummed around them before aura burst from the warehouse structure in a riot of colours. Aura twisted around to form the curves of slides and roller coasters, blossomed into the top of fake palm trees, streamed to form the water of the water rides. Nick watched the amusement park take form with pride.

"Very nice, very Anastasia."

"The Romanenovs were copying me with their ballroom scene, that was a complete rip off of what I just did."

"I'm quite sure what we have here isn't deceased royalty. What is this?"

"The only good thing about the 1960s you need to know - Wilde Times. This amusement park is my baby."

Judy stepped into the memory given form by aura. Nick followed at a slower pace to take in the flashing lights. He made a playful swat at the whack-a-moles, danced across a log set over a fake salmon river and filched a ball of yarn from the ball pit.

Judy didn't touch the park rides like Nick had, but she had leaned down to inspect the controls of a bumper car. "Did you make all this?"

Nick might have puffed up a little, just the teeniest fluff, really just a brief straightening of his spine. "I was the tinker to my father's tailor."

"Who's the soldier and the spy?"

"Us Wildes have our secrets."

"Funny, I never would have thought that with the way you boast."

"That's only 5% of what I'm actually capable of. You can't handle my full awesome Carrots."

"Yes I wouldn't be able to handle so much hot air." Judy had reached the center of the park now where the flashing lights were the brightest. She turned slowly, taking it all in. When she spoke again, it was pensive. "Do you ever wish you had it all back?"

Nick toyed with the yarn in his hands. Here, surrounded by his achievements, it was so tempting to say yes.

"No," he said. "This isn't the best it could be Whiskers. The Roar-a-coaster kept threatening to fall on my office, the wind tunnel still doesn't feel like an actual chase and can you believe there are actually big cats who don't care for yarn?" He gave the ball of yarn a tug such that it fell apart into a tangle.

Judy had started smirking partway through Nick's spiel and was giggling outright now. "Oh yes, I'm sure that only attracted hundreds of visitors instead of thousands."

"I had the thousands, I just wanted the millions."

"And your name in lights."

Nick swung himself up a post supporting the Roar-a-coaster and called out over the memory. "My name in lights at a new location in the middle of Sahara Square!"

He drifted back down to Judy's level. "That would have never been possible in the past. That's why I had to keep this a speakeasy."

Despite the cheer around her Judy's ears had come down. "I forgot how tough it was with collars in the past."

"I'm trying to forget too. To me the past is _past_. But some other spirits want to recreate what they remember. If enough spirits remember, or the place remembers too, you end up with this." He let the spectacle of the memory speak for itself. "So be careful today Carrots. I have a feeling that our Lynxington and friends are capable of this."

"Your hunches are usually right." Her next comment was completely unrelated. "Nick - the tiger that died in your speakeasy, is he still here?"

On the bad days, Nick couldn't get over the weight of the body as he tried to shift it away from the innocent eyes of the younger customers and the awful red the blood had stained his fur, which had led to his arrest. Today was not going to be a bad day.

"I've not seen him but I can keep an eye out."

As Nick had done earlier, Judy used the support of the Roar-a-coaster to clamber up to a height where she could see a fair bit of the park. "Mister," she called out, her voice carrying over the spinning rides. "If you are here, and if you want to move on, just let my friend Nick know, and I'll help you."

Despite taking some time to climb back down, Judy was still grinning when she got back to ground. Nick grinned back. "Talking about moving on, how interested are you in secret passages?"

Her foot started thumping again. "You mean there are more surprises?"

"With me? There's always surprises. This is my personal entrance." He led her into the office that occasionally shook with the memory of a passing roller coaster. He hadn't been picturing his office when he invoked the memory, so everything here was indistinct outlines, maybe a vague shadow of a humongous chair. Nick paused with his hand on the unassuming patch of wall that used to be next to filing cabinets that no longer existed. "Don't be too surprised."

He pushed the hidden door open, and led Judy out of Wilde Times.

Nick liked to think his cover up clinic looked a lot better than Cliffside. Despite being disused for a period of time, his Quick Fix Clinic still retained its brightness and cheeriness where Cliffside was all doom and gloom. Nick hadn't woken this place, so only the red crosses on the cone collars and other things on the walls hinted at the past of the building.

Judy picked up on that detail anyway. "I thought speakeasys were behind restaurants, not clinics."

"Only if they were serving booze. There's a fair number of predators who didn't want to put the collars back on again. Being a clinic gave us an official reason until we could coax them into putting their collars back on."

"You've put a lot of thought into this place."

"I already warned you that you only knew about 5% of my awesome." Nick made it to the boarded up entrance. "Carrots? Exit's this way. You can stare at the wall decorations next time."

Judy had stopped to read the documents framed upon the wall, and started when Nick called her. "Yes. Of course." She looked back once or twice, before rejoining Nick.

They stepped out of Nick's past, and headed towards another's.

 

So it wasn't the wards that were the difference between Nick's grave and Lynxington's grave. Nick's grave was in a quiet little corner under a quiet little bridge spanning a quiet little stream. Lynxington's grave had been under a larger river, under a larger bridge. Nick couldn't tell how big the grave itself actually was, because everywhere - the dry river bed, the bridge spanning above - had been festooned with flowers and banners and gifts of all shapes and sizes.

Judy had stopped to stare at the sight for a good five minutes, but for an entirely different reason from Nick.

"It's not that hard to understand Carrots. It's like Robin Hood. A thief's a thief until he steals for you. What Lynxington did resulted in the removal of collars for the whole predator community."

"I understand martyrs. I don't understand massacre."

Judy's fists were clenched and her posture hinted she was spoiling for a fight. Nick really didn't want to join in the fight as the representative of the predator community but no one else was around to step up. "I'm not saying Lynxington was right. But another 10 predator deaths were going to do jack squat for getting collars removed. The authorities finally abolished collars in the hopes it would appease the Original 10."

"So this is what he gets for filling entire files with the names of dead mammals?"

Nick closed his eyes. At least she hadn't mentioned her namesake. "Don't go down that road Carrots. An eye for an eye makes the world blind, and frankly the predator side has already given more than its share of eyes. That's why all they can see is no more collars thanks to this guy."

"I don't know who to be more furious at - those who started the collars business, or those who ended it."

Here was Nick's chance to redirect that anger. "Just be very glad you never had to face that choice."

"The past is past huh," Judy quipped.

"Where did you learn such wisdom from? Was it a handsome fox spirit?"

"A fox spirit with Alzheimer's and no idea of what he just said this morning." Judy swung the bag off her shoulder and placed it on the ground. "Let's focus on the work of the present then."

Arguably, if you had a strong enough exorcist or medium anything could be used for scrying. Judy had once used a beach ball for a quick glance at something. However, just as using a magnifying glass was better than a hula hoop when making things look bigger, sometimes a crystal ball was better than a beach ball, especially when scrying for three elusive spirits.

Judy found a suitably tall bollard within range of the grave to balance her crystal ball atop of, with balance being used generously or possibly wrongly. "Remind me again why we're not doing this at ZED instead of bringing almost the entire ritual room?" he asked as he poked through Judy's bag.

"Because better exorcists have tried in the ritual room and have not been able to trace any of the three spirits. We're trying with the graves first to see if the traces of aura left behind help, and if that doesn't work that's where your report will come in handy."

"You're the boss." He left Judy to set up. She would know how to create an array with the best spiritual resonance. The advantage of his spirit powers meant all he needed to do was stand in the center as he was now and be himself. "Are we feeling traditional today?"

"I should never have let you know my mother uses a crystal ball."

"Uh huh, and I would never have seen that for myself in my visits to your home." What Judy used next sent a shiver down Nick's spine. The box Lynxington had been encased in went to the south of the circle, with the grave at north. "Don't lend him too much power."

"I won't." Despite saying that, Nick was even more unnerved by the next item that Judy placed to the east of the circle. Generally Nick preferred to keep blood out of his rituals, so the bloodstained cloth was not something he would use in his rituals, no matter how many years old the blood as. There was also something strange about the aura mingled on the cloth.

Before Nick could inspect it more closely, Judy had focused her aura into an electric flame about the blade of her sword. She swung it in a circle overhead before she slammed it into the ground at the west.

Even before the scrying had started, Nick felt his back teeth hurt from the resonance of all the items, as if they were in a garment factory and all the machines were going at once. "Rabbit. What did you just do?"

"Making it impossible for Lynxington to hide," she said as she joined Nick in the center. She curved her paws around the crystal ball and peered inside.

According to the other Hopps, they could catch glimpses of what Judy saw inside of a crystal ball if they happened to be looking at the same time. Without rabbit senses, Nick didn't see any of that. Instead he saw the flow of aura - Judy's aura eddying from her hands to wreath her head and the crystal ball she was gazing into. Sometimes the aura gave off a bright spark as she made connections with whatever she was seeing, with only the barest of nudges from Nick's own aura. She hadn't reached her peak yet - the claw marks from the Grays were not glowing yet from her aura.

Then Judy's aura gained an entire galaxy of sparks and the claw marks on her cheek glowed.

That was Nick's only warning before a swirl of black manifested in the middle of Judy's array. He stepped closer to Judy - he couldn't stop her senses from picking up the maelstrom the array had turned into, but he could at least filter out the bulk of the effect without any damage to himself. Judy still staggered as her senses picked up on the changes, though she recovered without assistance.

In the middle of the swirling black aura was not just the lynx spirit they were looking for, but all three - the lynx, the raccoon and the sea lion. Now that Nick had read the files in detail he could name them - Lyndon Lynxington, Rocky Roni and Stella Otariids. All of them were in suits, and Lynxington's suit over an unbuttoned red shirt was baggy.

Nick showed teeth, but didn't give them the satisfaction of going dark. "You just met me two days ago and you're already copying my style?"

"We weren't allowed to request what we were buried in." Lynxington's voice was exactly what Nick remembered from his dream. "Are you going to offer us some pointers?"

"He isn't," said Judy. "You are not to leave these grounds."

"Oh yeah?" Otariids barked. "Where's your circle?"

Judy's response was to yank her sword from the array. When she swung her sword overhead, it activated the circle she'd sketched in the same way earlier. The circle closed around the group with a whump that displaced the air in the outline's path.

Nick swiped the crystal ball off the bollard so he could lean on it. "It was already here, and you walked right into it."

"They are dumber than you were," Judy quipped. Nick had to agree - there was a satisfaction in seeing others fall to the same trick Judy had used to get Nick's assistance in finding Mr Otterton.

"That still makes me smarter than 99% of the population."

"It wasn't too smart of you to shut yourself in with us!" shouted Otarriids as she flared her aura.

"Funny I was going to say the same right back to you," said Nick, letting his aura permeate the circle instead of keeping it in a concentrated flare. Judy was always better at the concentrated attacks.

As she did now with a bolt of electricity that cohered into a binding spell. The sea lion fell over cursing, but dissolved like sea foam upon hitting the ground. Judy's attack was a signal for the other two to attack. The moment their claws touched what they thought was Judy, they swiped down only to find themselves with fistfuls of leaves.

Nick waved at them as Judy reappeared on his other side. "When you're against a fox spirit, what you see isn't what you get," he called to them.

Lynxington didn't bother with banter, immediately switching his focus to Nick. It wasn't Nick's first time looking at sharp teeth opened to snap his neck. Since Manchas' attack when she went dark, Nick had picked up a few tricks. He bowled the crystal ball at Lynxington, and disappeared while the lynx was distracted.

What Nick did when he disappeared was sidle between states - now here and nowhere, today and tomorrow, light and dark, anything with an edge he could balance on. This world and the next was just one of the edges that he used to his advantage. A graveyard was the perfect place for him, seeing that it was an edge where the living and the dead met.

With all these advantages, Nick disappeared away from Lynxington. Let the lynx try to find him here.

When Lynxington didn't follow, Nick snuck back out closer to Judy's fight. Lynxington hadn't ganged up with Roni to fight her while Nick was away, and neither had Otariids. The lynx was still hunting for Nick on the other side of the circle, while the sea lion had yet to reappear.

Judy herself didn't need help. With aura in the form of lightning in one hand and flaming sword in the other, Roni had picked a fight with the wrong rabbit. The edges of his aura were signed, and it was wavering wildly.

That didn't stop the raccoon from running his mouth. "You're so pretty," he hissed. "I want to rip off your face and wear it."

Nick punched the raccoon because he could. The vibration from Nick's reappearance drew Lynxington towards Nick. Judy countered Lynxington's lunge with her sword.

Roni tumbled with the force of Nick's attack only to right himself on the third turn. "Why are you wearing the mask of the nice guy when you're not?" he demanded, then made a pulling gesture.

So this was what raccoon spirits were capable of - tugging whatever had been hidden to the surface. Nick found himself scrambling to keep down the darker powers that he had.

Judy, who'd already thrown up a shield to keep Lynxington away, widened her shield to include Nick as well. Nick appreciated the brief reprieve, though he was a little worried about how Roni was scratching at the shield. Lynxington was simply observing.

Nick forced himself to look away from their opponents. "I think I need to swap."

"Me too," Judy admitted. "Lynxington - he terrifies me."

The sensitivity of a rabbit meant they were hit right at the soul level by attacks. The claw marks on Judy's cheek, a relic from her childhood, were proof of a soul level injury. But a trained rabbit like Judy could compartmentalise those injuries to keep going. Fear however was the true danger a rabbit couldn't guard against. A skill for evading enemies by projecting the rabbit's fear, it could make the rabbit freeze up instead, which was dangerous in a fight. Even within the safety of her shield, Judy was clutching her arm in an uncharacteristic display of uncertainty.

Nick pried her grip from her arm and transferred it to her sword. "You're Exorcist Hopps. You can handle it."

This time Judy's nod was more certain. "I'm not bothered by the raccoon."

"And I can keep Lynxington guessing."

"What about Otariids?" 

"We'll figure it out when she reappears."

"Alright. Brace." Judy dropped her shield.

This time Roni was more hesitant to attack either of them since he'd expected Nick to pull his bait and switch. That left him right open to the blast of aura Judy directed at him.

That was the distraction Nick needed. He slipped behind Lynxington with some rope he'd borrowed when rummaging in the bag earlier. Except now he found himself looking at multiple Lynxingtons. And multiple versions of Otariids.

"Figure out which one trickster!" the multiple sea lions chortled. "How about a taste of your own medicine?"

"Right now it's tasting really bitter." He made a guess and tossed his lasso. The real Otariids struggled against the rope coiled around her. "But I think you're finding this medicine just as bitter. Didn't you know fox spirits are always lucky?"

To his surprise, Otariids jeered, "Made you look."

Nick looked past her and froze.

Judy was backed up right against the edge of her circle. Lynxington had somehow intimidated her with just the bloodstained cloth Judy had used for scrying. He was holding it out to her now.

"You're not the right rabbit yet," he was saying. "Until then, I think it best to go our separate ways. If you want to know the truth behind this piece of cloth, break the circle. Let us go."

Judy tightened her double handed grip on her sword. Then she nicked her own circle.

The three spirits immediately swirled into black miasma again that flowed out of the open Judy had made. Nick was left with an empty coil of rope and Judy, still staring at the bloodstained cloth Lynxington had dropped on the ground.

Nick scrambled to pick that up. Now that he had a chance to take a closer look at it, he found it wasn't just a bloodstained cloth - pinned to it was a police badge, and a name tag that read Judy Hopps.

"Nick, I'm sorry but the past isn't past," this Judy Hopps said. "Are you ready to tell me the truth yet?"

Nick wondered if what he was feeling now was how other mammals felt after discovering he'd hustled them. Nothing was as it seemed anymore. He was glad he was kneeling, because he didn't think his knees would hold him up in the face of such accusations. "I haven't lied to you about anything. Where did you get this?"

"While you were reading Lynxington's files, I went to the ZPD and asked them for evidence they'd kept to prove Lynxington had murdered Judy Hopps. I found this."

"And that's supposed to mean I didn't tell you something?"

"The array worked. That means Judy Hopps is my blood relation. Nick, you can tell me all you like that there were many rabbit officers in the 60s, but you can't tell me there was more than one Judy Hopps then."

"Carrots, we already have two right here - "

"There was a traffic ticket signed by Judy Hopps framed on the wall of your clinic!"

Nick tried to shake the confusion out of his head. "Rabbit, it's a clinic. Why would there even be a traffic ticket on the wall?"

Judy let her sword scrape the floor with no care for the blade. "You hid the past so well that even you don't remember the truth anymore."

"Here's a truth: I'm a wronged spirit who ought to be taking revenge for the injustice done to me. What use is the truth?"

Judy knelt down to lean her forehead against Nick's. "I'll show you truth is nothing to be afraid of."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The traffic ticket was from this brief storyboard shown at this part of the Imagining Zootopia documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hiu3qJi0aPY&feature=youtu.be&t=1779
> 
> If you're curious about the other influences for this chapter, I will be putting them up slowly over the week at [my tumblr, tagged "Wilde spirit"](http://raynos.tumblr.com/tagged/wilde-spirit).


	4. Something's gotta give

Apparently the truth had to wait until sundown.

"I asked Fru Fru to help me," Judy told Nick without looking up from her phone. Around them, the customers at the nice Stagbucks ignored the rabbit on her phone at the corner table that Judy had managed to snag. The spiritually aware did glance briefly at the fox spirit, but went back to their drinks soon enough. Usually Judy's sword drew its fair share of attention, but she had put that away earlier before setting out to look for a Stagbucks. It hadn't been hard. There seemed to be a Stagbucks a walk away from any place you could pick in Zootopia - Judy's apartment, the ZED HQ, even Lynxington's grave.

Judy tapped out a reply before speaking again. "I only contacted Fru after heading to ZPD so I'm not sure she has finished setting up."

"Isn't Mr Big's daughter busy with baby Judy? There you go, one more namesake that has nothing to do with your family."

"But Fru Fru did name her after me," Judy said with artificial sweetness that was probably matched by the syrup in the drink she'd ordered for Nick, made extra sweet so a spirit like Nick could pick up the taste better. Then her attention went back to whatever it was on the screen. That was good, because Nick didn't know what to do with her attention. His own attention was all tangled up in Judy's declaration at Lynxington's grave. He knew he had a checked past - sometimes he was even ashamed of it - but he never thought it had to matter to anyone else but him.

That his past also had to matter to Judy was something he was still wrapping his head around. Part of him wanted to get angry at Lynxington for making that suggestion once upon a dream. Another part wanted to get angry that Judy had chosen to dig into his past, and bringing the Bigs of all people into it. He'd rather have dealt with Judy's family. Speaking of which.

"Have you heard from your parents?"

"They haven't responded yet to my messages." Her ears, originally perked up from whatever Fru Fru had responded with, drooped back down again in the only sign that showed she was worried. Otherwise, Exorcist Hopps had her laser focus on her phone. The disgruntled part of Nick wanted to needle at that worry and taunt her with it.

The rest of Nick took the high road. "That makes ZPD our only source on Judy Hopps." Nick had read ZED's files cover to cover but they hadn't prepared him at all for what went on in the graveyard earlier. He wished it had. Now he had to wait on this ambiguous truth that Judy seemed fixated on.

"There's a lot of things that aren't in the ZPD files either." Judy's foot thumped the floor briefly in remembered annoyance.

"I'll be the judge of that." Nick nudged the ritual bag closer to himself and reached in. Judy glanced up to see what he was doing, but let him. He'd pawed through the bag when she was setting up for scrying after all. Whatever she had found from ZPD, she hadn't been intentionally hiding from him.

The first thing Nick found was the badge, which he shoved down as far in the bag as it could go. He had to push aside the crystal ball before he finally found a manila folder that he pulled out. His report was at the front of the folder - he flipped past that to find himself looking at a very official photograph of a rabbit from the shoulders up.

Even with the black and white of the photo, he could see straight off that Ye Olde Judy lacked the black tips Judy Jr in front of him had. He couldn't tell the actual colour of past Judy's fur as the lack of colour had shaded it to a default grey closer to present Judy's. Despite that, their stance was nothing alike. Cop Hopps seemed to be forcing her ears up for the photo, and there was a melancholy about her eyes that suggested she was tired of what the world was trying to show her. His Hopps, even with her dampened mood now, didn't seem as defeated.

He read the personnel data that the photo was attached to. Alright, some things were a little uncanny - Bunnyburrow native, age close to Nick's before he'd ditched his body, started being a cop about the same time as Judy had become an exorcist - but the rest was not. He tried to imagine the Judy in front of him as a switchboard bunny in a time before the mobile phone she was tapping away at. It didn't take.

He flipped the page. There was nothing else.

"Judy Judy Judy." He set the file down so he could smirk at her. "I give you a multi-page report and you come back with one page? Someone hasn't been doing their homework."

Judy was attempting to hide behind her phone, which wasn't working because it wasn't that large. "I saw plenty of things! Arrest warrants, case files, evidence boxes - I just wasn't allowed to take most of it."

He wondered briefly about the badge now hiding at the bottom of the bag, but Judy was pocketing her phone. "It's time."

"Where are we going?"

"The Rodentia graveyard."

 

Fru Fru had gone all out on the Rodentia graveyard.

From the street Nick and Judy were walking on, usually the largest things visible in the graveyard were the grand multi-towered family mausoleums that could house extended family in one place, since mice families rivalled rabbits' in size. What Nick saw now were mausoleums extended by aura memory to become multi storey until they peeked over the top of the graveyard fence. Angel headstones made awkward company with flashing neon signs. Someone had gotten hold of enough Christmas lights to delineate a make shift Main Avenue.

"That's a lot of effort to recreate the time when I was flipping burgers."

"What?"

Nick pointed at a huge glowing triangle of cheese to the west. "I used to work in Chez Cheese over there while I was still testing the rides for Wilde Times."

"Isn't that building pretty big for mice?"

"Chez Cheese was _the_ cross species eating place. Everyone wanted their burgers, because their melted cheese was magic, delicious magic. They had an elephant-sized burger, and if someone who wasn't an elephant finished it within the hour, they got vouchers."

"How'd you flip an elephant burger?"

"Oh those were easy. Two mammals, two skillets, a count of three, and flip! Mouse burgers, now those were the worst. The manager wanted us to balance 10 at a time on a skillet. You try flipping 10 tiny burgers at once Carrots. Burger bits everywhere."

"It sounds simple enough to me."

"We'll see how well you flip burgers Exorcist Fluff once I find someone else who remembers Chez Cheese."

Reminiscing had brought them all the way to the entrance of the graveyard and another relic of Nick's past that he'd rather forget - the polar bears flanking the shrew waiting there. "Well well. The woman of the hour."

"Fru!" Judy went up to the maestro behind the whole thing. "This all looks amazing!"

"Aww thanks." Fru Fru hopped on Judy's offered hand so she could be lifted up for air kisses. "You need a girl's night out honey, your aura's gone all thin!"

"I'd love to, but ZED's really keeping us busy."

"Wilde! What exactly have you been doing as her guardian?"

"Ma'am," said Nick, because he had a healthy fear of the mob especially now he'd left it. "There's nothing I can do if she wants to run herself ragged and go wandering around Little Rodentia reconstructions in her free time."

Fru Fru snapped her fingers, giving Nick an excuse to ignore Judy's exasperated huff. "That's right! We need your input as one of the Big Folk to get this building exactly right." She pointed to a set of apartment blocks growing awkwardly from a mausoleum.

"Wouldn't this reconstruction be easier in Little Rodentia itself?"

"Don't be silly Wilde. These buildings have been completed replaced by skyscrapers in present day Little Rodentia, I can't build over those."

The polar bear closest to the group spoke up. "There are also more spirits in this graveyard that remember Little Rodentia as it was in the 1960s. You know how important memory is in reconstructions."

Nick nodded at the polar bear medium. "Kozlov. You had any part in this?"

"Wilde, I prefer to deal with shields."

"You sure? Of the four of us here I think only Judy doesn't remember the 1960s."

"I was 5, maybe 7 then Wilde. If you are still keen on the past, I believe I still have the package my father left you."

"The past is more Judy's idea." Nick jerked his thumb at the rabbit responsible, who had the audacity to look proud. "Well, let's get on fixing this reconstruction."

While Judy squeezed after Fru Fru through the mouse sized entrance, Nick opted to float through the fence and keep floating. He got to the apartment blocks to find Mr Big holding court there.

"Nicky. It's been a while." He held up his hand so Nick could kiss the ring. "I was just talking to some folks who used to stay in the apartments we're trying to copy here."

Talking might have been too generous a word. Mr Big hadn't become the top crime boss by being nice, and from the awestruck looks on the faces of the gathered rodent spirits Nick reckoned they were too polite to do what they needed to make the place real. Not that having a fox spirit looming over them was going to help matters.

"Keep going," he prompted, as he found one of the larger headstones to flop against. He had to somehow make himself seem smaller without going on all fours that would set off an entire different set of instincts, and the headstone seemed the best compromise. He immediately wrote off the rodents nearest to Mr Big that were nodding like little bobble head dolls, and focused on those who were really more interested in the apartment. One of them a brown mouse, was standing near Nick with the brazenness only the very old had, although she didn't look a day over 40.

She caught him staring, so he inclined his head in greeting. She nodded back.

"Why aren't you hanging by Main Avenue? Nick asked. "It seems really popular."

The mouse tutted. "What's so nice about a bunch of shops? Besides, I never spent much time there."

"So you spent more time here?"

"I was born here and I died here, I'd say I spent a lot of time."

"Were you here during the Great Owl Incident of 1959?"

"I was indeed. That was a terrible time. We'd just got over warnings of being bombed."

"Didn't think in that age of machines we had to watch out for something more primeval," a nearby squirrel chipped in. "Who'd have thunk owls would have moved into the trees overlooking Little Rodentia? Two of them!"

"I kept my kids at home," a gerbil declared. "It wasn't something that could be fixed by safety in numbers."

"That's why they put the Big Folk by the school so they could beat off the owls," said the squirrel.

With the same sense that let him know an array was going well, Nick knew that the school in the reconstruction had become more real as more people remembered. Time to veer them back to this place.

"There must have been a celebration when the owls were caught."

"Oh yes, I think we even had a block party right here - "

As the three rodents discussed the scale of the party and who brought what and other celebrations they had at the apartment block, the memories gave shape to the aura. Now the details didn't matter, because the apartment felt real.

"You're good at this." Judy had finally caught up after Nick had beat her here by the simple fact that without a body he could cover the distance from the entrance a lot faster. "You should do this more often, arrays and fox-touched lucky charms are obviously a waste of your talent.

"When I showed you the aura memory of Wilde Times, I didn't expect you to follow up with a full scale production." Nick felt Judy's shoulders brushing his as she leaned against the same tombstone he was lounging against. Funny that barely a day ago they'd been in almost the same position in her apartment, but so many things had happened since then. "Alright out with it Hopps. How is this going to help us with the truth?"

Judy got the look that she always got before letting go of vines and jumping off waterfalls and trying to steal entire secret labs. "Tell me about your second arrest in Little Rodentia and the rabbit behind it."

"Well I got arrested." At Judy's glare Nick spread his hands in a helpless shrug. "I honestly don't quite remember the details. Let's see what I do remember... maybe let's start with the rabbit.

So the rabbit cop had blue eyes, tan fur - see nothing like you Carrots, anyone can see you have purple eyes and grey fur - and she had nice hips which was why her name definitely was Julie Hips - stop elbowing me sweetheart or I'll never finish the story.

Anyway. I was in the lock-up for a crime I didn't commit. Julie knew her way around a lock-up - the hippo there asked if she was ever coming back to rescue him - so she was pretty professional about coming to get me out of the lock-up. She took my statement about what I'd been arrested for, only this detective distracts her by asking how her exam went. So while they're yakking away about her joining the detectives I find a paper clip and spring myself free."

"Ever the tinker."

"Got that straight. And maybe the coppers are really all too full of donuts but she and this other horse are the only ones wo can keep up so I figured ok, let's see who I can shake off my tail, and dart into Little Rodentia. It works on the horse, but that rabbit just keeps going and - that's why we're here aren't we? That's why you had to recreate Little Rodentia in such detail from that specific era. You want me to reenact that chase."

"Not just you," said Judy, her voice soothing where her words were not. "Now that we know there's a link between the Judy Hopps then and myself, I can stand in for her. Besides, I am from a family of mediums after all, I still know how to communicate with the dead - "

"You have a perfectly good life with the job you want and a family that loves you and you want to create a karmic link with someone who ended up murdered?" He didn't dare to give voice to the part where the other Judy Hopps had been killed by Lynxington. Lynxington's taunt about the "right rabbit" was already reverberating around Nick's head, threatening to blot Nick's aura with darkness. "One of the three really doesn't belong here, and life's no game show where you get a prize for the right answer. You pick wrong, you're dead. And for the record the past Judy Hopps was nowhere near the chase I was talking about."

"I'm not picking anything! The karmic link already exists! You saw that the circled worked just now - "

"That could have been the shared name alone - "

"Oh is this going to be the thing with the file again? You pull a bait and switch and I let you talk me into doing something else?"

"Ha, Exorcist Judy Hopps doing something else instead of the thing she really wants?" Nick jabbed a finger at her, showing claw for emphasis. "You didn't do something else. Something else would be getting a jumbo pop, or watching some tv, not going to ZPD to find a stupid badge and more about a random Judy Hopps - "

"She's not a random Judy Hopps! You know her too!"

"Oh no, not the _framed_ traffic ticket, who would even frame a traffic ticket - "

"I was looking at arrest warrants remember? I found that the name on your warrant at ZPD doesn't say Julie Hips! It was Judy Hopps who arrested you in Little Rodentia, and if I stand in - "

"Don't you ever associate yourself with the rabbit that arrested me," Nick hissed. "If I hadn't been arrested that day, if I'd gotten free, maybe I wouldn't have died - "

He'd said too much about his death and the vengeance that drove part of his powers. Anger painted his aura black as bile, drawing out skills meant for him to take vengeance. He always noticed the teeth first, because how sharp and thin they went meant it was always easier to hiss instead of talk. Next was his claws, already out, narrowed to needle-fine tips he'd never kept when he was alive. Closely following was the urge to stalk prowl hunt, on all fours if that was possible.

The growl Nick let out as the force of his transformation hit him sent rodents scurrying. Even the brown mouse that had looked at Nick so fearlessly earlier fled. Only the Bigs stared back at him unafraid. Triggered by the proximity of a dark spirit similar to their own kind, both of them were showing every aspect of their vampire aura. Even Fru Fru wasn't bothering with hiding her fangs.

Mr Big propped his chin on his paw. "I always liked this part of you best Nicky."

"Well I don't." Even though the snapped comment wasn't meant as a threat, a shield went up between the Bigs and Nick. Since the anger this time was entirely from Nick himself, he remained dark. He glared at the rabbit behind all this. "Hopps, didn't they teach you at the Academy that the exorcist goes outside of the shield when containing a dark spirit?" Not that it would have been of much use. Normal Nick was good with arrays. Dark Nick took one look at them and could instantly find the one weak spot in the entire set-up. In his current state, Nick could have just tapped the simple shield to send it falling apart. Vibrations were for wimps like the lynx.

From within the fragile shield, Judy looked back with a calm in stark contrast to the roiling in Nick's aura now. "I'm not afraid."

It was all surface level calm. The dark side of Nick could sniff out what was going on beneath Judy's projected aura. Surprisingly, the instinctual fear from the rabbit side was muted by a sea of guilt. Too aware of what was going on beneath for the both of them, Nick simply murmured, "You should be." She had only seen him in this state once before: in the Natural History museum when it was all an act. This was not an act now.

But she hadn't been acting, both then and now when she looked back with fierce righteousness that banished all traces of fear, even the bits that only Nick's darker senses were able to pick up. "I'm not afraid of you," she said. "Neither should you."

Nick bit back the part that wanted show this simple rabbit why she was wrong by draining her aura dry. He couldn't control what he was, but he could control what he did with his powers. "You have the self-preservation of a lemming."

"It's called confidence." Her rabbit senses might have picked up some of his internal struggle, for she was worrying her lip as she looked him up and down. "If you need a moment to recover, if it bothers you that much, we could call this off - "

"I haven't said to call it off yet." Denied of what it wanted right now, the immediately of turning dark had passed to leave Nick more in control even though his spiritual hackles were still up. "Since I've already gone dark, might as well see this through." He nodded to the Bigs. "Ma'am. Sir. We'll set up."

He set off, with Judy following. Now that the part he'd been worried about had already happened, he let himself remember the details of that day. "The chase started all the way at the entrance. You'll need to give me a five minute head start if you want this to be accurate. Do you need time to connect to - " He fished around for a good nickname but wasn't in the mood. " - other Judy?"

"I'll need less than 5 minutes."

"Alright. No peeking with spiritually attuned senses. Just react as you would in any other chase."

She hugged him briefly, no matter that his aura must have stung like nettles in his current state. "Thank you. For agreeing to do this, even when it doesn't sit well with you."

He smiled, the thinness of it contributed by the new shape of his teeth. "Stop being so sweet to a dark spirit, it makes it more tempting to eat you."

"I think my sword might help change your mind." She squeezed his arm, then headed towards the entrance. He watched her go, struck by the notion he should have hugged back earlier. He shook off the melancholy and went back to observing his surroundings.

It spoke volumes about Fru Fru's talent that she was able to be accurate in aura memory. Buildings tall to a mouse were about Nick's eye level. If he tip-toed, he could just about see over the tallest buildings. However, the buildings were still mostly too tall for a rabbit to peer over. That had been what Nick had been counting on when he had led the chase into Little Rodentia in the past. If he dropped on all fours he would be practically invisible.

He did so briefly right now. Though it had been closer to a leopard crawl in the past, his current instincts were to hold himself close to the ground in a prowl. Unlike previously, when crawling had earned Nick curious stares and a wide berth, now the rodent spirits scurried away when they saw the approaching dark spirit.

He straightened before the darkness could dominate again, and tried to slouch towards the right place. He wished that he had Judy's rabbit senses - while she could cheat and use her senses to pick out his aura, that wasn't the capabilities of a fox spirit. As long as she wasn't attempting to scry for him or use an array to pick him out, he wouldn't be able to tell where she was. All he had was his luck to put him in the right place at the right time.

He remembered the apartment block he had been hiding behind when the rabbit officer - he was going to keep on calling her Julie or Rose Hips, never mind what Judy insisted - had caught up to him. He flopped onto his back by it now, much as he had then. Curious spirits peered out at him from the memory of the apartment block, much as the rodents had back in the 60s when Nick had pulled his trick. He held a finger to his lips in a sign for silence.

Then Judy appeared. Whatever she had done to channel Officer Hips was so effective that the moment Nick saw her, aura memory took over.

Aura memory was also the reason why ghosts tended to reply the moments of their death or other moments significant to them. Nick had never been inclined to until now when he bolted at the reminder of the police officer.

The aura memory now led Nick down Burrow Boulevard. The low roof forced him to go on all fours. The rational part of him remembered why he had come here. The pedestrian only mall was twisting and winding like an actual burrow, and only those very familiar would know the twists and turns. Nick, having used Burrow Boulevard as a shortcut to dash to his midnight shifts at Chez Cheese, knew the Boulevard very well.

Judy, being one of the polite Big Folk, had never made it this way. She struggled with the low height and the sudden turns and branches in the Boulevard. But unlike Julie Hips, she did not have a scurry to deal with and so was making better time.

Nick had almost forgotten about the hidden turn that aura memory led him through. Judy dashed right past, her speed causing her to miss the turn. Nick wriggled out of the exit soon after. The aura memory relaxed its hold when Judy failed to exit on Main Avenue as the rabbit officer had that time. So much for karmic links. Obviously Judy and Julie were not as closely linked as Judy thought.

Judy finally resurfaced further away than Nick expected. She eyed the buildings separating the two of them, before attempting to run on the top of the buildings.

Nick didn't know what mice had against piling for their houses or foundations for their gravestones. Without either, both the memory of the houses and the tombstones standing in their place started to topple as Judy shoved off. She had to stop to straighten them.

In the meantime, Nick took a train.

He wasn't tiny enough to fit inside a train, but he had always wanted to stand atop one like a surfboard. Fru Fru's aura memory groaned at the strange use, but held.

Nick's smirk at his success faded as he spotted the walkway tubes stretched above the train line. "You've got to be kidding me," he groaned. This was aura memory taken too far.

He was so preoccupied with dodging the tubes that he only caught Judy's scent with his darker senses before she tackled him off the top of the train. Nick tumbled a lot further down Main Avenue than Judy had. He shook himself off. At least there weren't any honking cars this time. A quick glance down the interaction showed that Judy had landed him in more or less the right place. The Big Donut diner was just down the street, waiting for Nick to trip over it and get arrested.

Now that aura memory wasn't dominating, Nick had another idea that he had been wanting to try. He'd held off before, but there weren't any live rodents to squash this time. He darted down the street before Judy could catch up. When he got to the diner, he nabbed the donut off the top. "Have a donut!" he called out, before bowling the donut replica at Judy.

Judy ducked, flattening herself and letting the donut fly overhead. Behind her, someone let out a short, sharp scream before a very familiar aura exploded the donut. From all the way down the street Fru Fru glared.

"Sorry! Are you alright?" Judy called to her.

"I'm fine," Fru Fru assured her, then snarled at Nick as soon as Judy's back was turned.

While Nick was trying to figure out if Mr Big had seen any of that and if he was in even deeper trouble than the time with the skunk butt rug, a rabbit drove herself into his midsection. Nick crashed down by the diner, much as he had back in the 1960s. A handcuff closed around his left wrist. He kept his face turned to the ground, the aura memory of the road warring with the graveyard dirt beneath. Either way, he waited for the memory of his last moment of freedom before his death to take hold.

But the handcuff didn't snap close over his free wrist, although Nick heard the sound of it clicking shut. He turned back to find Judy looking down at him, her aura twisted into a facsimile of the same aura from the police badge. Judy's eyes were blue, although he wasn't sure if that was from her aura or from the spirit he sensed within Judy.

That spirit spoke now. "I should have believed you," she said. The other half of the handcuff slid down her arm as she leaned her forehead against his, a parody of what Judy had done after releasing Lynxington and friends earlier. Both his normal and dark senses screamed at him how wrong this whole scene was.

"I should have believed you when you told me you were innocent," said past Judy in her borrowed skin. "I should have gone with you to find the truth. I'm sorry."

Nick made sure his smile showed how thin and sharp his teeth had gone. "Not all of us get second chances," he whispered to the wrong Judy. "Now scram before I make you."

"We have to complete the investigation," the spirit insisted. "You said you had to get to Tundra - "

Nick didn't bother to let her finish before he reached up to touch Judy's cheek. He pressed down on the claw marks hidden there. Another fox spirit had made these, but he was close enough in nature that the scars flared with aura.

At the reminder of recent scars that she had never borne, past Judy Hopps gave up control. Nick's darker senses prickled with unease as he sensed past Judy Hopps receding instead of disappearing to reveal the Judy Hopps that Nick knew better. The purple eyes of that Judy met his, and she frowned at him. "Hey, it's alright. You didn't have to get so mad at her. She's gone."

But she wasn't. Judy Hopps, the exorcist Nick was guardian to, wasn't just a blood relation of the Judy Hopps of the 1960s. She was her reincarnation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe somewhere out there there are sentient birds, but for the purpose of this story let's assume the mammals only environment in Zootopia means that the birds didn't get to evolve.
> 
> Now that the tough truths are out, I wonder how Nick and Judy will cope?


	5. Hey Jude

Whoever had placed the Rodentia graveyard near the ley was a genius, because it had made getting to the ZED HQ that much quicker. Nick had just hopped on until the ley had brought him where he needed to be. Judy was probably still trying to catch the bus somewhere.

That suited Nick just fine.

The truth Judy had shown him still burned like acid that threatened to fight its way out of his mouth and hurt whoever was in front of him. He didn't know if that ought to be Judy, no matter that it'd been her past life after all and that Judy wanted to know too. She'd tried to ask if Nick had seen anything while she had been possessed. Ha. If only it was as simple as possession. Possession was something Nick knew about, could even happen by accident if he walked through someone without paying attention. Reincarnation was not. Spirits that lingered in the living world tried not to think about reincarnation, since the only way they could reincarnate was with the guidance of a medium or being banished by an exorcist's sword.

What Nick did know was reincarnation was something a soul had no control over. Since she'd gone on and reincarnated, it wasn't as if she could turn back time and clear Nick's name. Besides, hurting her over the fact that she had refused to believe he hadn't hurt anyone was deeply ironic. (Nick had made the mistake of telling Mr Big that precisely once. Mr Big had laughed, and Nick had bought a skunk butt rug.)

If Nick told Judy the truth, he didn't know what would happen. But besides telling Judy, Nick didn't know what else he could do with the truth that he'd just learnt.

Which was why Nick was at the ZED HQ now. He had an inkling that Chief Bogo might know what to do with the truth better than Nick did. And if it ended up with Judy off the team hunting for Lynxington, well, it wasn't a country club membership or a Furrari but he'll take that perk. It would give Nick much needed time to figure out how things stood now with Judy.

Just to be sure his previous outburst wasn't showing, Nick passed Clawhauser. If Nick's anger was still triggering his dark powers Clawhauser could call the whole cavalry down. Night was when the ZED was most active after all. 

The cheetah at the front counter frowned at Nick, but didn't hit any panic buttons. Instead, Clawhauser greeted Nick, then added, "I heard Judy calling in to say Lynxington got away. That's going to be some report huh?"

"An absolute thriller. That's why I wanted to talk to the Chief first, don't want him dropping those tiny glasses of his in shock."

"That's if they let you." Clawhauser pointed behind Nick. "Incoming."

That was Nick's only warning before a fluffy whirlwind hit him. When the world stopped spinning Nick found himself being marched off by the pair of wolf spirits flanking him.

"Wilde!" The wolf on Nick's right started.

"- We heard Hopps calling in the sighting of Lynxington," the wolf on the left continued.

"And Roni and Otariids - "

"- and there was a showdown - "

"Awesome!" The both of them exclaimed together.

Nick glanced back to see how Clawhauser was handling the spirit napping that was taking place right under his nose. Clawhauser had the audacity to wave. "Have fun! I'll let the Chief know you're coming by in 30."

"15," Nick shot back over his shoulder.

"Aww c'mon Wilde. You owe us at least an hour," said Fred Wolford.

"Hopps has been keeping you all to herself," added Ned Wolford.

"What are you, three?" Nick groused as they started kissy noises over Nick's head. It was a pity that Ted Wolford was only annoying and not cutely annoying like his brothers, though he might be feeling the pressure of being the only pup alive from his litter. "Seriously, I don't have time to go all the way to the rec room."

"No can do. You owe us all a poker game."

"A poker game. You're going to play a game of luck with a fox spirit. Do you need a Spirit Power 101 refresher?"

Fred was undaunted at the reminder of Nick's charm. "The guardians are all waiting."

They led him down the basement steps into the spirit side of the ZED. Not every exorcist had a guardian - ancestors tended to prefer sticking to the homestead, other spirits usually weren't powerful enough - but there were enough that the spirits of ZED had gotten their own cosy corner in the basement, away from the hustle and bustle of the living.

Not that it was any less busy. A team of guardians was just leaving for their shift, including a lioness who groaned when she saw Nick. "Wilde! Why did you have to come when I'm just leaving?"

"Just your luck Johnson," Nick had to quip.

"Buh bye Johnson and Johnson!" chorused the Wolford bros.

"Shut up, my partner isn't even here!"

There were still a number of spirits in the rec room when the three of them reached it. There were the ever present mice messengers that also had shifts. Trunkaby was in his usual corner. Higgins was shuffling a deck of cards with surprising dexterity considering her comparatively chubbier fingers. Jaq Jackson, one of the messenger mice, was watching her.

Nick stopped short. "You weren't kidding about the poker game."

Higgins started dealing with fancy wrist flicks. "Yes we want to hear about the Original 10, and you get to beat the pants off us. What's there to lose?"

Really, what was there to lose? Nick picked up the cards closest to him to find pictures of jackals and oryxes and heh, gazelles lounging with the suit sign of hearts, showing this was a Sahara Square set. The Wolford Bros started arguing about who could afford to play and lose.

Trunkaby turned away from the wall he was looking at. "How's Hopps?"

"She's fine." Nick had almost been distracted from why he was here, but it all came roaring back now.

Trunkaby nodded. "Good person, that Hopps." He returned to regarding the wall.

"I'm surprised you haven't turned out like that," said Higgins. "The weight of all those years of memories must be terrible. Wilde?"

Nick had tossed his cards on the table. He wasn't ready to share on Lynxington and his friends just yet. 

"Sorry I think I hear Chief Bellows calling. Don't want to give him an excuse to come after me." He winked, hoping that would deflect questions about why he had to see Chief Bogo right away.

Higgins turned a beady eye on him before shrugging. "Just be careful, the Chief's beefed up his wards since the last time you appeared in the middle of his paperwork."

"I love a challenge," said Nick, already floating upwards to the highest floor.

" _He had a full house_ ," Nick heard Fred exclaiming before he got too far to hear anymore.

Nick didn't manage to make it to the middle of Bogo's desk, but he did float through the door without knocking. Unlike Judy, the Chief didn't take to the intrusion too kindly.

"Wilde, when I invited you past the threshold, it did not mean an invitation to drop in at your whim and fancy."

"I don't know, Chief Boss, I think you are less worried about my mode of entry and more concerned I might find you doing something other than work. Is it the rainbow cat app today?"

"If you are here for no other reason, I'm happy to show you how to use the door that you have some difficulty in navigating." The way Chief Bogo phrased his statement made it seem that the Chief's idea of using the door would be more violent than what the action required.

Nick stubbornly took the chair. The Chief regarded him, knowing that if Nick had something to say he would crack first. Nick hadn't lingered in the mortal world this long to be outdone that easily. He'd come with the file he'd borrowed from the ZED record room that he now shoved at Chief Bogo. This time the silence was an answer - in the moment that Chief Bogo had looked down at the folder, a brief look of recognition had crossed his face.

"So you knew about the other Judy Hopps," Nick had to clarify anyway.

"I'm short-sighted not blind." Chief Bogo flipped the folder open and tapped a hoof tip on the name "Judy Hopps" twice. "But this was not the first time I've been made aware of this name. The screening process for exorcists is quite extensive, especially when they come from famous families such as the Hopps."

"Then why did you put her on the team that was working to confine the Original 10? Why have her track down Lynxington now?"

"Earlier, did the two of you find Lynxington or did Lynxington find the two of you?"

As a fox spirit, Nick knew some truths were more welcome than others. Since this was Chief Bogo, he fudged, "I'd say 50-50, we pinged him and he met us halfway, it was all very spontaneous."

"Contrary to what you may think Judy Hopps is not the only talented exorcist in this building. I have had exorcists working on finding our escapees the last 48 hours. The moment Hopps comes on shift we get our first sighting of all three. Why would I not put her on the team responsible to find Lynxington?"

Here was a chance for Nick to share the truth that had been troubling him since he'd learned of it. But now that the Chief had showed he knew more of the truth than he had let on previously, Nick wanted to see how much Chief Bogo knew. "I don't know. If I were Chief, I wouldn't want my star exorcist dying like her aunt did."

The Chief did not respond to the obviously wrong statement. "If that is her karma, it would happen whether or not I send her after Lynxington. She could be making house calls and Lynxington might end up on the other side of the door. I think Hopps would rather face Lynxington head on, sword in hand." Chief Bogo pushed the file back to Nick. "It's not like you to have doubts in your exorcist, Wilde. Is the truth too disturbing for you? Do I need to take you off the team?"

It was terribly unfair of the Chief to wield truths he had known all along and Nick hadn't like weapons. But Nick was used to the world being unfair. He smiled, lazy and slow, and said, "You'd know the answer to that question if you did the same screening on me that you did on Hopps."

"I'd have approved Lynxington as Hopps' guardian if the team up delivered results." Chief Bogo regarded Nick levelly over his folded hooves. "But if you suddenly feel the urge to take revenge, understand that the ZED won't let you go unpunished."

Perhaps this was the real reason why Chief Bogo stared as if he expected Nick to step out of line. Unfortunately he would be disappointed again today. "I was thinking the two person setup Hopps and I have going on was getting a little boring. I need to take a few days of leave to discuss things with a few consultants."

"If the consultants are from Bunnyburrow, please bring Hopps along. Whatever advice they have for you might be useful for her as well."

That would involve talking to Judy, but Nick wasn't going to let Chief Bellicose see that would be a problem. The Chief was already proving why he'd been made Chief Exorcist and he didn't need more material to work with. Nick simply said, "I'll see if she wants to go."

"Very well, take the weekend off." As Nick turned to go, the Chief called out. "Wilde?"

Nick didn't turn back around, but he did stop just by the office door.

"You might want to bear in mind that karma isn't just about the past. The actions you take in the present that affect your current and future lives, that too is karma."

Nick was very glad he was facing the door so he could make a quick exit through it.

 

"She's taking the 10am train?" Nick asked.

Finnick was muzzle deep in his mug of coffee. He made an obnoxiously long guzzle, and finished it off by saying, "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

"Spirits and phones, what a great combination. How much pressure is needed to use a touch screen again?"

Finnick snatched his phone back. "You spoil my phone again, I'll kill you a second time." He swiped a few times then read, "Judy says I managed to snag a seat on the 10am, is Wilde over there still acting like an oversized chicken?"

"That's not what she said."

"No, I had to edit out all the emotions before it made me barf." Finnick eyed the contents of his mug as if that would magically turn it into something stronger. "She's killing me Wilde. You're killing me. Just fucking talk to her and stop passing messages through me."

"Kids nowadays, so ungrateful that they can't help send a simple message - "

"I'm not related to any chickens. You're already going have to face her in what, half an hour? Get over it."

Nick had hid out in Finnick's van because it was far away enough from Judy's place and Finn had Judy's number. He was starting to regret it. "If it's just half an hour there's no need to hasten the inevitable, is there."

"It's gonna become a bigger explosion than it needs to be and I'll be here safely in my van going I told you so."

"You don't know - "

"You went dark," Finnick snapped. "That's the most likely thing that'll make you stump around with your tail between your legs like your goldfish just died. So?"

There was a danger in hanging around those who knew you well. Nick sucked in a breath to replace whatever had been knocked out of him. "I could hurt her," he admitted. That was the only part of the truth that was safe to touch for now.

Finnick cast his eyes heavenwards like Nick had said the sky was green. "If you really wanted to hurt others you wouldn't have left the Bigs. Also seriously? You think she carries around a honking big sword for fun? She's an exorcist. She could probably gut you as soon as you said boo."

"She wouldn't."

"But she could. Just like you _could_ go dark. Newsflash: the two of you are fucking hazards to each other and _it's nothing new_."

"I'm disowning you," Nick declared. "You're getting nothing in my will."

"Like you have anything to leave me, Grandpa. Go take your train. Or don't. Take the damned ley all the way out to Bunnyburrow for all I care." He made a shooing gesture with a paw.

"No one has any sympathy for a poor soul," Nick grumped, and ghosted out of the van.

 

Finnick didn't get his prophesied explosions. Instead, Nick found Judy in an apologising mood. After arriving at the train station, she handed him an extra hot extra sweet coffee in an unmarked take away cup. Café Reggio Mammalia considered takeaway coffee a sacrilege to the art of coffee drinking, which was best done in the cafe itself when it was freshly pressed. But they were willing to make an exception for the exorcist and her fox guardian who spoke so warmly about the cafe in the old days.

That was all to Nick's benefit, because he got to warm himself up with a nice cup of Reggio joe. Just breathing in the aroma was almost as good as tasting the aura of the coffee itself.

It still almost wasn't enough to fortify him for a full train ride to Bunnyburrow with Judy, especially when he still had no idea what to do with the truth of her past life. Bogo knew, but wasn't telling. Nick knew, but hadn't decided whether he would be telling. Judy's family hadn't shared on the knowing and telling. Nick was kind of counting on them to give a poor fox spirit some guidance.

But that was still at the end of a train ride where the train was late and if Nick gripped his coffee any tighter he was going to pass right through it and lose all that deliciousness.

Judy had sat down with her suitcase by Nick's side after she'd distracted him by handing him the cup of coffee. "Are you feeling better?" she asked, concerned and quiet and without the relentless cheer. Nick would have preferred the relentless cheer. Relentless cheer was Judy's default mode.

Nick attempted his default mode of sarcasm. "I've got a cup of joe brought by a pretty doe, what could possibly bring me down?"

Oh no, she had placed her hand on his arm. That was reserved for quiet moments in cable cars and Nick admitting things that he had never shared with any mammal before. "It's ok," Judy was saying. "You can tell me."

Luckily for Nick, he was a fox spirit whose charm let him get away with whatever he wanted to. "Is that the train? We don't want to miss our ride Whiskers."

There were some days it paid to be a fox spirit with all the luck that came with it. Judy dropped her hand and the subject.

Nick and Judy had been back to Bunnyburrow enough times that they had almost had a routine for it. Nick handed her his coffee and whatever he had to be substantial to hold over to Judy, and floated through the train wall. There were a larger proportion of non-spiritually aware mammals arriving from outside of Zootopia, and getting walked through wasn't fun for a spirit. Judy, more visible as a living mammal, could navigate the crowds with relative ease and maybe a bit of elbow.

Between the two of them they snagged a four seater around a table, the other two remaining empty as it was on the non-scenic side of the train that curved away from the receding views of Zootopia. Then Nick was left with no more excuses and a faintly smirking rabbit. Dammit.

He made an attempt to deflect anyway. "It's not funny to laugh at someone as they're drinking coffee."

Usually Judy would launch into the mechanisms of drinking for spirits, and Nick would offer all sorts of ludicrous reasons why she was wrong. Today Judy simply said, "I'm happy you're enjoying it."

"Do you know Reggio's had 80 years to hone their coffee to perfection? All I'm doing is appreciating their art."

"Is it really that hard to talk to me?"

"Aren't we talking about coffee? Yes, yes we are."

That wasn't the answer Judy had been looking for. Her ears came all the way down as she stared down at her hands and said, "I'm sorry."

If Nick still had a beating heart it probably would have stuttered right then.

"Sometimes I do things that I think are right but they aren't." She huffed and shook her head. "And that's what happened here again. I know how you dislike talking about the past, and I still pushed. I know how much you dislike going dark, and yet I let it happen."

The outside of the train went dark as the train went into a tunnel, the electric lights inside the train casting a reflection of a rabbit and a fox against the window.

"So if you decide you just want to talk about meaningless things or if you decide never to talk to me again t-that will be fine, but before you shut me out, before things settle this way I want to apologise. I'm sorry."

How Judy Hopps, who wasn't afraid to apologise, who wanted to do the right thing, get so tangled up in the mess that was Nick Wilde? Nick didn't know. For all his charm at the small stuff and meaningless things like arrays, when Nick tried to do the right thing with the truth, he just mucked it all up again. He hadn't meant to hold his silence for so long that it hurt her.

"Carrots - _Judy_ , it's not all on you. It's not about going dark - ok it is a little of that - what happened that night has been a mess 50 years in the making, Hopps. And it's only coming to light now."

"You're not a mess because you can go dark Nick."

"Aren't I? 50 years past the time I ought to have moved on, and I still haven't figured out a thing." Like how to balance being a good guardian against his base nature, like how to tell Judy that she was the cause of his darkness when she was already so upset each time he turned dark. Judy took Nick's paw. 

"Nick, no one has all the answers. That's why we reincarnate. To figure out as we go along."

Nick couldn't help the wry smile. "I guess that's why you're so wise huh?"

He got a quirked smile in reply. "Mom did say once I had an old soul."

The train burst back into sunlight again.

"No wonder you get along so well with senior citizens, they recognise their own kind." He never thought he'd be relieved to be punched in the arm, even though Judy released his paw to do just that. "So apart from being old - do you know if you're reincarnated?" Maybe this was the easy answer Nick had been looking for and he had twisted himself up for no reason.

"Mom didn't like it when my siblings and I channelled our past lives. She would scare us with her story about our Aunt Alice who was almost stuck with her self from the 1860s. Besides, my past selves have been pretty quiet."

Nick should have known that would have been too easy. "At least you know your past lives exist."

"I'm pretty happy with the life I have now. "

And Nick had a truth that would disrupt it.

The emotion behind his thought must have shown on his face because Judy started speaking in a rush. "I - I didn't mean to remind you that you aren't alive! And I just did it again. Why do I always say the wrong thing - argh!" She let herself flop down onto the table.

" - Is your foot that tasty that you have to keep putting it in your mouth?"

She sat up so that she could scowl at him. "How about I shove my foot down your mouth and you tell me?"

"Do rabbit feet go with coffee? No they do not." He pulled delicately at the aura of the coffee and pretended that was the source of the warmth he felt rather than the smile Judy was giving him.

"How did you spring for Bogo to give us this vacation?" she wondered, propping her chin up with her paws and her elbows on the table. "ZED's short with how much resources we're pouring into the operations regarding the Original 10."

"Chief Brows offered out of the sheer kindness of his heart."

"Did you forget I work with the Chief too?" She was outright smirking now. "The Chief wouldn't show his kindness through something as easy as leave. C'mon Guardian Wilde, you can tell me."

That part of the truth was still safe - he hadn't corrected Chief Bogo's wrong understanding of the karmic link between the two Judys after all. "I told the Chief we had some questions for your folks. Didn't you ask about Julie Hips but haven't heard from them?"

"She's not Julie Hips," Judy groused.

"I can't keep calling the two of you Judy, so unless you have a better suggestion the nickname sticks." When Judy didn't fill the pause with suggestions, Nick continued. "So we ask your folks about Officer Hips, and also make sure Lynxington hasn't been up to anything."

"I guess my parents want to tell me whatever they know about my relative in person," Judy sighed, dropping her paws back in her lap. "I'm not sure they can help much with Lynxington though. We don't get many dark spirits out here."

"You never know. He could be in Bunnyburrow just to escape detection by the ZED." A more insidious image Nick tried not to think about was Judy backed up against the edge of her own circle by Lynxington. It could happen to any of the other Hopps too, and unlike Judy they were largely mediums and healers. He hated to imagine them fending off a spirit like Lynxington with only defensive techniques.

"I'll like to see him get past Great Uncle Albert," said Judy with a relish that should not be typical of a rabbit. "I'm sure Adam would have told me if Lynxington popped up in Bunnyburrow."

"Adam? Your eldest brother?" Judy was the first to make it to Zootopia city proper, but she had family scattered all over the Triburrows and the suburbs. "How would he know what was going on in Bunnyburrow?"

"My parents might not be answering my messages but they are in touch with a number of my brothers and sisters. Adam says they're still calling him to catch up."

... Nick should have known. This was Judy Hopps after all. She already tried her best to help mammals she barely knew. If her family was in trouble, she would have swooped in like a superhero to their rescue already.

"I think it's sweet of you."

"You've got to be more specific than that Whiskers." There was a minuscule hope that Judy hadn't noticed how silly Nick was being.

"You were worried about my parents on my behalf. You thought they weren't responding because Lynxington got to them."

Nick really needed to stop hanging out with mammals who could see right through him. Between Finnick and Judy it seemed Nick never got a break unless he took special effort to make them for himself. Like now. "I only made it sound that way to get Chief Bolero's sympathy. It's called a hustle sweetheart."

"I ought to be saying that to you, dumb fox. You're the one who thought we had to go all the way out to Bunnyburrow."

"Nuh uh, that ought to be smart fox. I got us a vacation after all."

"Sure thing, Nick."

"Besides, if you knew your family was fine, why did you agree to go back?"

Judy fidgeted under the table with something that she had pulled from her pocket. "Ever since we saw my namesake in Lynxington's file, I just keep finding things that relate to her. And - I thought I'll try to settle this once and for all, rather than keep reminding you of her. Maybe if I just know more about her, I could put this away." She laid the police badge on the table between herself and Nick.

"... ZPD didn't let you have this, did they?"

"Chief Bogo yelled at me about unnecessary borrowing from the ZPD for about an hour. But - I've learned to trust my feelings on spiritual matters Nick. And they're telling me that this is important."

The mention of Chief Bogo had Nick recalling what the Chief had said about karma and being unable to avoid it. The badge shone in the morning sunlight like a bad penny that kept coming back. Perhaps Judy's karma with Lynxington - even Nick - was the same.

But if it was karma, did Nick have the choice of sparing her?

"Judy." Her head snapped up to look at him instead of the badge at the sound of her name. "How do you feel about vengeance?"

Judy let her next breath out slow. "As an exorcist, I would say that you ought to be punished for your intent. As a medium, I would try to talk you out of it. As your friend - I trust you Nick. You'll do the right thing."

For Judy's sake, he would. He just needed direction on what the right thing could be, when vengeance was an instinctual thing for a dark spirit. Meeting the Hopps had never been so important before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next stop, Bunnyburrow!
> 
> This chapter was super hard to write and so I have no more pre-written chapters! If the next chapter is just as hard to write, it might be a bit late. I'll work hard to keep up the weekly chapters, but no promises.


	6. Try to turn the tide

The trouble with coming by train was that the part of the Hopps farm accessible from the train station was the Visitors Way. The Visitors Way was, surprise, full of visitors. While there were mammals that preferred fairs as a cover for seeing mediums, there were some matters that were time sensitive. Deaths didn't wait for fairs after all, and neither did problems with spirits.

As with the train station, the waiting rabbits gave way to Judy easily enough. Nick had to stick close or risk being walked through. His tail was trod on once or twice by spiritually unaware mammals.

He almost ghosted right through Judy when she abruptly stopped after pushing aside the heavy velvet curtain separating the queue from the ritual room. She held a finger up to her lips for silence, then moved away from the curtained entrance and tiptoed towards the rest area.

The heavy oak door was more an issue for Judy, who had to shove it with a shoulder. Nick was more concerned about the wards here, which were only recently keyed to include him. Thankfully, he made it in with no trouble. More intimidating was the rabbit spirit standing by within.

Well to Nick at least. Judy immediately drew the spirit into a hug. "Great Uncle Albert!"

"Careful, you know I don't have the whole corporeal thing down just yet." He patted her on the shoulder, his grin softening his default gruff expression. Since ghostly features didn't translate fur colours and markings that well, that was the best tell that they were related. "How's my favourite exorcist?"

Judy released him with a laugh. "You don't know any other exorcist!"

"Well you're certainly not my favourite rabbit, that's reserved for your mom. And she's not going to like how scruffy you've gone." He pinched the edge of Judy's aura for emphasis. "Wilde you have any idea how this happened?"

Nick had to resist the urge to bristle defensively. Nick might be more powerful, but Judy's Great Uncle had combat experience from World War II, and he'd Chosen to stay on as a spirit. "Our work runs us pretty ragged Sir."

Albert grunted. "Knowing our Judy she'd probably do everything assigned to her and then some."

"Great Uncle!"

"Don't you Great Uncle me you know it's true."

Judy rolled her eyes at Nick, but she was grinning at the ribbing. Especially since Albert turned to Nick next. "What about you Wilde? The issues with your aura don't look work related."

"I assure you everything that's happened to my aura so far is related to the Original 10."

"Well, not all of it," Judy amended. "Part of the reason why we're here is about Officer Judy Hopps."

"Your mom's been wanting to talk to you about that." His ear turned towards the other heavy oak door that led to the ritual room complete with crystal balls. "Your mom is still busy with her appointment. Why don't you find your father first? He's only got Robert helping him today."

"Where's Holly?"

"She's off with some botanists to catalogue the useful native plants in Bunnyburrow." Familial pride had him puffing up his chest a little. "After the Datura Stramonium, they've been pretty interested in our neck of the woods."

"That's really cool. Bellwether's scheme did some good instead of evil." The Hopps were sensitive to using the name Nighthowlers, so Judy tiptoe around the word once she was back home. "I'll see how long Dad's queue is. You coming Nick?"

"I don't suppose I'm needed here?" He arched an eyebrow at the older Hopps to see if there was any protest or something he wanted to say to Nick only, but Albert nodded towards the door. Figuring Bonnie Hopps would talk to him at the same time as Judy, Nick ducked out after Judy.

The outside of the Hopps home had so many magical trees and plants and spirits all interlocking with each other that Nick's senses tried to read it as a very complicated array. He'd long given up trying to map the extent of it, and now just focused on the one thing that made sense in that chaos. It seemed to Nick that just being on her own land made Judy's aura rounder and fuller than it had been in Zootopia - Hopps land was kind to Hopps rabbits.

It was less kind to Nick. The land knew he had been invited across the threshold, but it still gave Nick the sense of a million eyes watching him, both wary and curious. Who was this fox? Why was he here? (Was he actually safe?)

Judy, who had originally been skipping ahead, dropped back to walk by Nick. Her aura extended around him and gave him a little bit of respite from the prickling observation of the Hopps grounds. "Still deep in thought?" she asked.

"There is far too much green here. What's with all the trees? You'd think this was a forest instead of a farm."

"It's the countryside, city kid. We can go blueberry picking later if it'll make you feel better about all this nature, and I think we have some dewberries if you're feeling adventurous."

"When I could have more blueberries? No can do Carrots."

"You can't get by with just blueberries!"

"Watch me try."

They came to the clearing Stu Hopps had set up for patients to find rabbit ears and heads had swivelled towards the sound of their laughter. Healers were more in demand than mediums, and there was less stigma in seeking out a traditional remedy, as they called it. If it weren't for Judy's father having irregular hours around his chores on the farm, he might have done better than the local doctor.

Stu Hopps himself was grinning when Judy and Nick ducked under the natural cover provided by the trees surrounding the grove where he worked. He didn't seem to mind the strong smell of the poultice he was packing into the patient's wound. "Be with you in a jiffy," he said, while packing.

Robert, who didn't know Nick too well, just nodded at Nick before asking Judy, "Hey sis. What's with the patchy aura?"

Judy's grin was just about the only warning Robert had. "Oh you know how it is Rob, great big city, aura sucking ghosts everywhere."

Robert's eyes went as big as saucers, while the rabbit patient squirmed for reasons unrelated to the wound. Stu Hopps looked up long enough to say disapprovingly, "Judith."

"Sorry Dad. I thought you didn't want any more Hopps disappearing into Zootopia."

"Might want to tone down the relish Carrots," Nick had to add.

Robert turned to Nick, "Are there a lot of vampires in Zootopia?"

Robert's choice of words was deeply ironic. "Well, your sister and I know an entire vampire family. They invite us over for dinner sometimes."

"Alright!" With a final dollop of poultice applied, Stu picked up a nearby cloth and rubbed his hands clean. "Rob you take over the bandaging. The two of you, come with me before you have too much fun at the expense of the younger ones."

They relocated to a convenient pump. Judy got the pump going so Stu could wash his hands into the bucket placed there for just that purpose. He patted them dry on another towel hung on the pump itself before tilting Judy's chin up. Judy rolled her eyes, but stayed still so her father could examine her.

"Well, you are looking kind of worn, but it's nothing rest can't handle. Pity we're just past the full moon."

"Imagine how much worse she'd be without the full moon," Nick said in his lightest tone.

"Imagine how much worse you look since you can't tap on the full moon," Judy shot back.

"She's right son." Stu was open and welcoming in a way his land was note, which Nick should not crave so much. "I'm better with living aura than spirit types, but you don't look too good either. You should ask my wife to take a look at you later."

"I'll do that sir."

"Just Stu will do."

They retreated further to where the trees were all leaning towards each other, as if they were sharing secrets over the heads of those passing by. The next grove they entered was clearly a workstation - the tables there had ingredients in various stages of preparation scattered over their surface. Finished ointments and poultices were set to one side, next to the more complex mixtures that came from the apothecary.

From somewhere Stu procured a flask and scrounged enough mugs to pour tea for everyone. It wasn't sweet enough for Nick, but he guessed the purpose was to focus on the essence of hibiscus instead.

"So this isn't really a social trip," Stu clarified.

"No." Judy was cradling her mug but had not drunk from it yet. "Was it that hard to tell me over the phone?"

"It's hard to have a conversation on auras, karma and traditions over the phone."

At the mention of karma, Nick choked on the tartness of the hibiscus tea. He put down the mug hurriedly, but the two Hopps didn't notice. Stu was already reminiscing, "You know our big old oak in the middle of the orchards?"

"Yes!" Judy exclaimed at the same time as Nick said, "No."

"You have to see it to believe it. I think it'll be a little easier to understand if you remember the markings on that tree." Nick didn't know about any markings on any tree, yet Judy still looked at him when the reference was made. He spread his hands in a silent shrug.

Judy's frowned turned to surprise as the new arrivals in the grove caught her attention. "Mom! Great Uncle!"

Nick only knew Bonnie Hopps from the occasional visits back to Bunnyburrow since he'd become Judy's guardian. Even so, he knew the weight of sorrow in her aura was new, and must be hefty for even a fox spirit to pick it out when she was at rest. It was more apparent when Stu Hopps joined her - the weight of his own sorrow resonated with hers, but where Mrs Hopps bore the weight of it Mr Hopps had used it to strengthen his own resolve, and that of his wife's.

Bonnie straightened at the support of her husband. "Judy, do you remember how naming goes in our family?"

"Great times infinity Grandma takes a look at the child's aura and suggests a name." Judy's tone might have been matter of fact, but her raised eyebrow showed she was just as mystified as Nick.

Nick didn't get to hear Bonnie's reply. Albert, who had been floating by Bonnie's shoulder, left his position to approach Nick. "Why don't we give them a little privacy?" He suggested.

Nick's protest died when he saw the direction Albert was drifting in. Apparently it was time to meet the Holy Hopps trinity.

For farmers who grew carrots the Hopps had a good variety of fruit trees. In the midst of apple and pear and peach trees, atop a grassy knoll exactly one of each type grew next to each other. Albert led Nick to the foot of those trees.

Despite Judy's assurance that the three oldest Hopps ancestors did not sit in the trees all day, Nick always found them in these trees on his visits. If he'd Chosen to stay on as a spirit, instead of being a victim of whatever karma imbalance the Original 10 had caused, Nick might like to sit in fruit trees all day too - though he could swear Judy's Great times infinity Grandma had been sitting in the peach tree before. He tiled his head as he squinted at the blossoms shedding petals with each gust of wind, trying to figure out if they were white or pink.

Albert leaned against the trunk of that tree without concern about the type of tree it was. Agnes Hopps, affectionately known as Great times infinity Grandma, did not speak with a booming voice. Instead her voice was low, the ends of her words slurred with the next like a slow but continuous pour of honey. "How have you been Nick?"

Nick resisted the urge to demand to forget the small talk, he had a question that needed answering right now. His mother had brought him up to respect his elders. "I'm good, been told my aura could be better."

"Nothing a square meal can't fix." Beatrix Hopps was brisk in both words and actions as she reached into Charlotte Hopps tree and drew a peach from among the leaves. "Here's a start."

Nick caught the tossed peach but didn't bite into it. "Sorry, I thought the problems with my aura weren't to do with nourishment or the lack thereof."

"Sassy and direct," Charlotte giggled. "But wrong."

"The way I see it, aura works like fruit," continued Beatrix.

"Leave it too long on the stem, it rots," said Agnes.

"Cut it too early, it never gets the chance to ripen," Charlotte sighed.

"Well not in the usual way," said Beatrix.

"Doesn't taste the same," agreed Agnes. "But the worst is being ripped from the stem."

"Could flay the skin," Beatrix remarked.

"Cut to the core!" When Charlotte spoke with relish she sounded like Judy.

"The way I see it you're somewhere in between," Agnes said. "But because you hold your wounds close, you feel it more keenly."

Nick huffed, trying to make sense of the run on conversation. "It doesn't seem I've held it close enough if you see so much of it. You knew my life was cut short."

"You forgot you're dealing with rabbits Wilde," Albert piped up from the bottom of the tree, causing Nick to start at the sudden interruption.

"And we're old enough to have forgotten how to be polite!" Charlotte chirped.

"You were polite enough not to say anything when I first came to be Judy's guardian."

To his surprise all four spirits nodded and grinned at each other.

"You've forgotten what I told you about guardians," said Albert. "The most important to us is the bond to our wards so we're able to protect them."

"Albert's bond to Bonnie is so strong the land adopted him as a Hopps!" Beatrix chuckled.

"It doesn't matter how you came by that bond, it matters what you use it for," said Agnes, as if that were the final word on the matter.

It wasn't. First Chief Bogo, and now the Hopps were saying that they knew how Nick and Judy had been linked in the past. Chief Bogo had the luxury to excuse himself as being unrelated to Judy. To the Hopps, Nick said, "First the name, now the aura. If you knew all along, why keep Judy and I in the dark?"

It was a bold statement that stilled the trees and the spirits in them. Only Agnes smiled, confident in the face of challenge. "Come along with me," she said to Nick. "Some things are easier in the showing than the telling.

Curious despite himself, Nick went with. At this part of the orchard Agnes was leading him to, the trees and plants and now two spirits were all pointing in the same direction. Nick turned his nose and ears to the top of the hill that was the nexus of the array that covered the Hopps ground. Whatever was there, it had left traces on every other part of the Hopps lands.

Or rather, Nick amended when they finally reached the top of the hill, every other part had left traces on it.

At the top of the hill was an oak tree, already awe inspiring in its height and girth. Around the tree was a staircase that only circled halfway up the tree. The pattern on the bark seemed oddly uniform. When Nick got close enough he realised the tree was cover in scratch marks too numerous and neat to be by chance. The scratch marks seemed to resonate with the things in the orchard around the tree.

"Would you like the scenic route or the quick answer?" Agnes asked.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at," Nick admitted.

"Ah yes, foxes aren't like rabbits. Rabbits never forget an aura that they've sensed before." She turned her face up and pointed. "I can see Judy's row from here."

"So you mean this is how evolved rabbits mark their territory now?"

Agnes' hum was an amused one. "Less to do with territory and more to do with memory." She started to drift upwards towards the crown, Nick following close behind. "The easiest way to trace past lives is to have each member of the family make a mark during each life." She patted the nearest set, then pointed at the lowest scratch mark. "First life." She pointed to the scratch mark just above it. "Second life. Well, with this family at least."

"Your family must really enjoy scratch and win cards." Nick's senses picked up the resonance between the two lives before Agnes moved on and he had to dash to keep up. They covered what seemed like a long way before they stopped again. Nick glanced up to find the top of the tree was still a while off.

He looked back to where Agnes was pointing to a set of five scratches set close together. Can you tell me anything about these?"

Nick's darker senses rumbled uneasily at the sight. Nick took a moment to tamp both that and the surprise that his dark side and awoken down.

When he drew closer it started to make sense. Nick wasn't a rabbit, but he knew Judy. With all the samples of aura clustered together, he could feel the resonance across the past lives of Judy, including the one he'd met again barely a few days ago.

If Nick's darker senses were in control Nick would be growling right now. He laid his hand against the scratches, feeling the answering pulse of Judy's lives. "So this is how your family comes up with names."

"We name our children after themselves to acknowledge who they were. I'm flattered Judy likes our family that much. It's a pity she needed so many rounds to figure herself out. Needs."

"Does Judy know about this?"

"She's drawn here sometimes by her own aura. Everyone and everything is - the trees are linked to those who planted them, the footsteps on the land remember those who left them just as this oak does. But has Judy come all the way here?" Agnes shook her head. "Some Hopps spend their whole lives without being bothered by their previous lives. Even though his oak here is proof. Judy hadn't been bothered by her past lives."

"Until now."

"If you think she ought to have known the truth, answer me this: why are we born not knowing our past lives?" Agnes perched primly on a conveniently close branch. "Those who have moved on aren't supposed to remember their past lives Nick. Give them enough memories, and they'd become their past selves, not who they are now. They'd be like us."

"Judy's in danger whether or not she knows the truth."

"I don't know about whoever Judy has been tracking in Zootopia. He's been put away for a while." Agnes set the branch she was on to rocking, as if it were a rocking chair. "But you, Nicholas Piberius Wilde, you could have been a threat to Judy any time before now. You could have come all the way to Bunnyburrow to challenge her on her past life. Why didn't you?"

Agnes Hopps was no Mr Big, but Nick still hesitated over his reasons for not going dark. It was easier to look at Judy's gathered past lives than a curious rabbit grandmother. "Whatever my reasons were, I'm not sure I have a choice anymore. What should I do now?"

But Agnes Hopps had left. Figured. Nick ran his thumb over the latest scratch, wondering how Judy was and how much she knew now.

 

Despite disappearing on him, Agnes had given Nick a hint on how to find Judy. The traces of Judy left on the oak still held links to the original, especially given her current location. He followed her aura down the hill into the fading light. At a corner of the Hopps grounds he had never been to, he found the Judy he knew best perched atop one of many gathered headstones, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Is this a private pity party or can anyone join?"

Judy was startled out of her thoughts. "Nick?"

The light blue of her aura no longer seemed electric, for the spark in it was muted such that her aura resembled shifting water. It didn't help that her aura was mixing with the traces left in the grave of one Judy Hopps, a ZPD officer so exemplary the ZPD bywords of "integrity, bravery, trust" had been engraved on her headstone. Nick stopped at the other end of the grave. For lack of a better thing to lay, he put the peach he'd been given at the end of the grave as an offering.

Judy rubbed a paw over the rough stone she was sitting on. "You deserve a grave like this."

"Do I think this is a good location for a grave? Yes, yes I do. But I don't think the neighbours would appreciate having a fox buried nearby." He gestured to the nearby headstones that had taken on the orange hue of sunset.

"If it's part of making amends, they'll understand. I don't deserve a grave like this, given all I've done."

"What you've done has nothing to do with my grave - "

"You were in that grave under that bridge because when I was a police officer, I arrested you, and had you branded as a murderer, and that resulted in your death. You - you don't have to forgive me, but you have to let me fix this."

"I don't want you to fix it this way."

"So, what do you want?"

Nick looked away from the grave right in front of him to better bite back the darkness tickling the back of his throat. "I don't know yet."

"May I show you what you can have?"

"If you want to."

Judy leapt lightly down, footsteps still light enough not to disturb the grass. Nick was better able to tell where she was by the shadows she cast, long and reaching because of the setting sun, as she rounded her own grave. He huffed when she held out her exorcist sword to him. Grasping the offered hilt he reminded her, "I told you I wouldn't know the first thing to do with this - "

She tugged the sheath off, kneeling to place it on the grass. She did not get up, instead maneuvering the bare blade of the sword with practiced ease. For a moment Nick had the absurd idea that she was trying to get him to knight her.

Instead, she placed the tip of the sword against the hollow of her throat.

"Nicholas Wilde, in exchange for the wrongs I've done you you can eve have my life. On my word."

The sword fell through ghostly paws that Nick was too distracted to hold solid. Nick found himself fixating on how the purple of Judy's eyes matched the sky that sliding towards dusk. He couldn't have heard what he just heard.

Judy took hold of his now empty paws, concentrating enough aura in her own so she could tug him down into a hug. Nick was shaking - he dislike how much he was shaking - but Judy was shaking too.

" _Judy_."

"I'm sorry, but it's true."

Dusk fell across the graveyard and the two figures crouched there, trying to come to grips with an overrated truth.

 

Spirits didn't actually need to sleep - the weariness that Nick felt right now was best fixed by collapsing in his grave and forgetting the world existed for a while. But his grave was 211 miles off in Zootopia, and Nick didn't feel like bothering with the ley. In a pinch, the corner of one of the Hopps' sofas would have to do. Judy tried to offer him one of the empty rooms, but all of them held personalised echoes of their previous occupants. The living room was used by enough different rabbits that Nick could tune the ambient aura out. The Hopps were spiritually aware enough to avoid sitting on Nick, though he had to occasionally flick his tail out of reach of the hands of curious rabbit kits.

"Kids, leave our guest alone, he's had a long day."

At Bonnie Hopps' instruction, the kits obediently trotted off. Bonnie herself settled in a nearby armchair, sorting out a half-completed knitting project. It was obviously a set-up for conversation if Nick wanted it.

Given how much trouble the truth had caused so far, Nick was almost inclined to pretend he was dozing. But he still had questions about his aura, and Bonnie Hopps was the expert.

He dragged himself upright. Bonnie took one look at his ruffled appearance, and suggested, "How about some tea?"

"Does it come with a side of advice?" Nick rubbed his temples with two fingers. "Sorry, that was unfair of me." Bonnie was no longer looking as sad as she had been that afternoon, but she was still one of those who knew the full link between Judy and her past life.

"If you haven't heard an answer in everything the Hopps ancestors had to say, perhaps you're not ready to hear it yet. I'll try to be more direct in my reply."

"Alright Mrs Hopps. Let's have some of that tea."

"It's Bonnie. We can go to the kitchen, we're less likely to be disturbed."

Nick followed Bonnie into the kitchen that somehow always managed to be warmer than the rest of the house, perhaps because the cooking fires were on most of the time. There was one pot on the stove now. Bonnie turned up the fire to bring the contents of that to a boil, then started pressing on the contents with a wooden spoon to release the smell of peaches.

Nick threw himself into one of the mismatched chairs to watch Bonnie put together some peach tea. The cooking was somehow more calming than his attempted doze on the sofa.

"Is there some magical properties that peaches have on spirits? This is the second time today I've been offered peaches," Nick wondered.

"They're good for the heart. Your aura isn't doing too well because your heart is troubled." She checked the tea pot and nodded approvingly at it. "Iced or hot?"

"I pick up the taste better with hot."

Bonnie set out a tall glass for herself and a mug for Nick. She poured a generous measure of peach tea for Nick, before putting together her own drink.

By the time Bonnie Hopps took the seat opposite with her glass of iced tea, Nick was feeling a lot less frazzled. He almost didn't want to spoil the mood with his question, but he wasn't going to be in Bunnyburrow long. "So you said you were going to give me straight answers."

"If you have a straight question, yes."

Nick eased his grip on his mug, and asked as flippantly as he could, "Do I have a choice not to exact vengeance?"

"That's a difficult question to ask a mother," Bonnie sighed. "Excuse the reminiscing, but when Judy started work as a proper exorcist and all, with more than just house calls, she wrote to thank me. It was very nice, a proper letter, none of that email nonsense."

Nick remembered. He'd teased Judy about leaving the old-fashioned stuff to the old folks, and she'd thrown her pen at him.

"She told me that she'd learned a lot from watching me, because as it turns out exorcists do a lot of medium work too. They don't just banish dark spirits. They talk to all of them first, even the darkest spirit with the most murders to his name, to see if there's another way. They're given a choice. Banishing is a last resort."

She sat back, looking at Nick with the critical eye of a medium. "You've made choices that have led you to become a guardian, and to me that's nothing like that darkest spirit with the most murders to his name. You should be proud of that."

Nick looked down at his mug, slightly embarrassed. There was something about having the faith of a Hopps that made one feel huge and small all at the same time.

"It doesn't meant the choices later will come easy. You're just in a better starting place than most. Try to remember that."

Nick finally cracked his first genuine smile in what seemed like a while. "I'll remember."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DOWN TO THE WIRE but I got it done *fistpumps*
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the reprieve in Bunnyburrow. It's back to Zootopia next week if I manage to keep up the writing speed. See you all in a week hopefully! *gets back to the writing board*


	7. A fighter by his trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actual chapter 7 up!

If Bunnyburrow was kind to Hopps rabbits, then Zootopia was kind to Nick Wilde. He'd felt his aura relax the moment he stepped onto the platform at Zootopia's central station, and entering the ZED HQ this evening hadn't changed that. So long as Judy's sword stayed strapped to her back, Nick was happy to consider whatever happened in Bunnyburrow as a fever dream.

"I didn't know you liked my report on Lynxington much to share it with the whole of ZED," he quipped after Chief Bogo had handed them their orders. If the Chief appreciated Nick risking the wrath of the Librarian by borrowing files to come up with that report, or relieved his star exorcist was still in one piece, it didn't show in the brusque way he'd handed Judy a map at the briefing and told her to catch up.

Judy on the other hand seemed to thrive on having work, never mind the less than stellar delivery. Her ears were perked in interest as she stared at the symbols marking the locations Nick had found, which was the only thing Nick recognised on the map. He hoped it made more sense to her than it did to him. "I should have asked you," Judy admitted. "I didn't want to give Lynxington and friends too much of a head start. We have been away for a while."

"Anything that stops Lynxington is fine by me. I just hoped we could claim the best places first." Even with his luck, he doubted he could wrangle any of those now. "So what's left?"

"Some place I've never been. Do you know Happytown?"

As far as Nick was concerned, Happytown had the same status as Officer Judy Hopps - only shared on a need to know basis. It would take too long to explain why to Judy, so he settled for his usual, "I know everyone and everywhere in Zootopia. You got an address Whiskers, or are we picking places by throwing darts?"

"Chief Bogo has a shift of exorcists keeping a watch on Lynxington's family in case Lynxington decides to return. We're supposed to call on them today for a more detailed check on the inside of the apartment."

"Are the Lynxingtons still there?" It wasn't Bunnyburrow so Nick still had a sliver of hope.

"There's an ancestor tied to that address - a Lysandra Lynxington."

Nick knew that name from his research. Apparently dark spirits had mothers too. He wasn't sure if she'd cooled with her transition to a spirit; she had written many impassioned letters to the ZED back in the day regarding her son.

"I'd have preferred the darts," he admitted to Judy.

"One day we'll convince Chief Bogo." Judy nudged Nick to alert him she was going to hop off their shared chair. It seemed today was shaping up to be a normal day at the ZED.

That was until they passed Clawhauser. "Oh oh Judy! It's dangerous to go to Happytown. Take this." He shoved some talismans across the counter to dangle off the edge so Judy could snag it with a hop.

Right now Judy frowned up at them. "Are you that sure we'll find Lyndon Lynxington?"

The part of Clawhauser visible when he leaned over the counter morphed from concerned to disconcerted. "Oh no the Happytown gig should be almost like house calls, but the thing is that houses when called on have mammals in them. And sometimes those mammals aren't that friendly to prey - "

Nick cleared his throat. "I'm a Happytown native Claws."

"No offense Nick, from one predator to another, but you know what I mean right?"

"I'll steer her right. Lynxington's close enough to the edge."

Judy snagged the talismans off the counter. "Thanks anyway!" She called up, and only shook off the rainbow sprinkles on the talismans once out the door.

Running around on official work meant they got to use the official cars, though Nick could have gotten there twice as fast on the ley. He'd survived the train ride from Bunnyburrow back to Zootopia without mentioning the conversation in the graveyard. He could survive this.

Especially when Judy changed the topic. "So what is this Happytown?"

"Take everything you know about Bunnyburrow and flip it on its head. Except for the medium part - we've always had those too, though less traditional than what Mrs Hopps does."

"So it's less crowded and there's more to do than stare at dirt?"

"Ha, that's the optimistic bit of it. You might find it a bit exciting after our trip to the boonies."

"Why haven't you mentioned Happytown before?"

"What's past is past. There's no one I know anymore that stays there - living or dead." He was glad to find that his parents had moved on. Happytown was not a place made for lingering.

At the red light she placed her hand on his arm. "You're always welcome at the Burrows."

He'd appreciated the sentiment long before Judy had given voice to it, but he couldn't help feigning surprise. "So all those visits to your home were just trial runs? I'm touched I finally made the cut."

She elbowed him, laughing and finally rounded the bend that brought Happytown into sight.

The graffiti was always the first thing Nick noticed about Happytown, a warning and a welcome all in one. It was mostly names and notes that only made sense to the creator. At this section, someone had made the effort to outline a pair of door gods bracketing one of the larger streets, though age and being doodled on had weathered them into ghostly outlines, especially under the harsh glare of street lights.

That didn't make them any less effective. "Drive down that street," Nick directed.

The static caused by crossing a threshold crackled briefly over the car, but receded once it found no ill will. Nick shook himself to make his bristling fur lie flat. Judy brushed through her ears.

"That's quite a threshold. Why is it there?"

"Happytown doesn't like outsiders much, especially those looking for trouble. But sometimes those who bother to ask the natives are given a free pass. So now others know we're here on official business."

"It would be nice to meet the medium that set these up."

"It's polite to call on Mama Odie. But she'll understand we have work to do first since Lynxington's digs are that a ways. You might want to park on this stretch now." Judy's ears curved towards Nick in a silent question. "It's like your Visitor's Way. Anywhere else is just asking for trouble."

By the time they'd parked and set off towards Lynxington's place, Judy's ears had gone ramrod straight and she was walking on the balls of her feet, ready to dash at any moment. Nick supposed it was a variant of what he felt in Bunnyburrow, except the watchful and curious eyes in the dark belonged to predators both living and dead than the land itself. The questions were similar: Who was this rabbit? Why was she here? (Who was going to get the short end of the stick - the rabbit or them?)

Extending his aura as Judy had done for him in Bunnyburrow was no use to Judy here, but it did serve as a reminder to those watching that he was Judy's guardian. Judy's shoulders eased, which was a good enough side effect anyway.

Between Nick's aura and Judy's sword, they made it to Lynxington's apartment block without any trouble. Lynxington's place was just high enough for the stairs to be annoying. Judy, having trained on the rickety stairs of her apartment, gamely bounced up the stairs. Nick took full advantage of floating.

Nick had expected ominous black aura or elaborate death traps or Lyndon Lynxington himself to challenge their approach. But their destination was just a normal apartment, its door matched with all the rest. Judy's hand hovered over the door with its peeling paint when she didn't feel any protective wards. At Nick's nod of confirmation, she rapped sharply.

As Nick felt the approaching aura, he had to quip, "Knock knock."

"Who's there?" The mammal behind the closed door demanded, right on cue.

Despite the eye glowering at them through the peep hole, Judy spared Nick an eye roll before going into Official Exorcist Mode. "Judy Hopps, ZED. We're here -"

Before she could explain the door flew open to reveal the lynx on the other side had her hands on her hips. "Look here, poster girl, if you think my grandma's going to join you in having her face plastered all over like your pet ghostie here you've got another think coming. The nerve of you to think we have nice words for the ZED after what you did to my uncle - "

For all that Judy looked wide eyed and gentle she could be amazingly hard when she wanted to be. "With all due respect," she cut in, her tone conveying the exact opposite meaning of the words she spoke. "Guardian Wilde is not a pet ghostie. And we're not here as part of any outreach efforts."

That knocked a bit of the wind out of the lynx's sails but she was still gruff when she shot back, "It's about my uncle then, innit? Your kind came sniffing around here a few days ago - "

"Lyra," someone called from inside the house. "Let the exorcists in, we've got nothing to hide."

Lyra narrowed her gold eyes at Nick and Judy, but stepped aside. It wasn't a full out invitation and was just enough for them to step across the threshold without future repercussions - for now. Nick felt the threshold shiver across his fur, a milder version of what happened with the door gods.

He didn't mean to notice the Singer sewing machine right off, but it was the exact same model and colour as his father's. He could still remember oiling the machine under his father's watchful eye -

Nick blinked and made himself refocus on the rest of the room. The differences couldn't be more obvious now. The apartment was filled with a mix of different things that had to belong to different mammals. There were three different chairs at the dining table, the throw cushions had striking geometric patterns that drowned out the soft baby blue of the sofa set they were tossed on, and the art on the walls had to come from at least five different art periods.

Lyra had thrown herself on the longest sofa, attempting relaxed disinterest in a stretched out slouch even though her eyes and ears were trained on the pair that had come in. Nick stuck by Judy, who had come to a stop in the middle of the hall. "Ma'am," Judy called out to the other mammal in the house that had addressed them. "Could you join us in the living room?"

"Just a moment." The bead curtain separating the deeper part of the house from the living room swayed briefly before Lysandra Lynxington ghosted through it to enter the living room.

Lyndon shared his gold eye colour with his mother and his niece, but his mother was stockier, and looked like she could give Rosie Riveter a run for her money in the guns department. Thankfully, lynxes were one of the smaller cats, and she didn't tower over them like most other mammals did even when she came right up to them. Lysandra still had to lean a little to get to eye level with Judy. "They do make you seem taller on the posters," she mused. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"I'm afraid we're here on the job ma'am. Are you Lysandra Lynxington?" Judy asked. 

"That's me. So what does the ZED want this time? I always knew they were insensitive, but I'd never thought they'd do this."

"Ma'am?"

"Lyra is too young to know this, but the first time ZED came, they handed me a paper and asked me if I knew about what connection my son had with the mammals named on it. They asked me if I knew why he'd murdered them, including one Judy Hopps."

Distress crackled through Judy's aura. Nick placed his paw on the small of Judy's back, but spoke to Lysandra. "Ma'am, if Exorcist Hopps here had been the first to approach you after your son's disappearance, I would agree that the ZED had motives in sending her. But she was not. Exorcist Johnson and her guardian were here the first time, am I right?"

"Then why is she here now?" Lyra shot back.

"Exorcist Hopps is the best tracker in the ZED. Her sensitivity to aura is unparalleled. Ladies, your family member has been missing for almost a week now. His current company are two other spirits who are just as unfamiliar with the Zootopia of today as he is." Nick paused to survey his audience. Lyra had looked away from Nick and Judy for the first time since she'd opened the door, and Lysandra had straightened, as if she needed the distance. Judy's aura beat in a comforting cadence against the pad of his paw.

He went for the kicker. "For his sake at least, help us find him."

Lysandra too turned away as Lyra had. "He's not here. I don't know where he is."

"And that's where Exorcist Hopps comes in to do the hard work. Hopps, what do you need?"

"I'm sorry that I remind you of the events involving your son," said Judy, soft where she had been hard before. "But I'm not here to remind you of that. All I need is something that belonged to him that he might still have a link to."

"You mean you don't have to poke around every room?" Lyra demanded, all bristles and snark again. "That's what your other exorcists did."

None of Judy's previous fluster was showing now. Exorcist work was what she was most comfortable with, and she always had a ready answer for any question. This was no exception. "If Exorcist Johnson didn't find anything that way, I'll have to try something different."

"I think I might have something," Lysandra admitted, and ducked back behind the bead curtain.

Lyra had decided on studied disinterest of the two guests. Judy might be fine with standing at parade rest in the middle of the living room, but not Nick. He drifted around, getting a better look of the living room.

If the eclectic mix of furniture didn't reflect who lived in it, then the photos placed at random did. They were all showed various stages of age and dust, but in all of them happy lynxes smiled at the camera. Even Lyndon, recognisable from the placement of his spots, was smiling in a few of them too. That was a far cry from the lynx spirit Nick had seen in the miasma.

That made the reappearance of Lysandra Lynxington with a guitar less jarring than it could have been. The guitar was free of even the dust that was on the photo albums, suggesting someone still cherished it very much.

"This belonged to Lyndon. He used to play it to soothe his vibes after rallies. Said it helped him focus on what he was fighting for."

Judy inspected it without touching it, then asked, "Do you know any of the songs he used to play?"

"I'm not a guitar person. Perhaps your guardian could try."

Judy's ears curved towards him in question. Between the frivolous and the deep discussions that they'd had, somehow music had not come up. Nick hadn't talked about music with many. Once, his mother would ask him to play for her. No one had asked since.

"I haven't played in years," Nick admitted, even as he reached out for the guitar. Lysandra placed the guitar in his paws, faintly smiling as his mother might.

Someone had made an attempt to keep the guitar tuned, but not a very good one. Nick made adjustments as he picked out chords until things sounded right. He glanced around at the apartment. Looking around had given him a hunch, and he'd always trusted his hunches. Including the song that had just occurred to him.

He'd only made it to the second quiet chord when the house shivered around him. The array in the Lynxington house wasn't as apparent as in the Hopps estate but it awoke now at the vibration of a guitar string. Heh, lynxes and their vibrational perception.

He'd played this song often enough that he could let it just flow through his fingers and focus on the mammals around him. Lyra had relaxed enough to have half closed her eyes, her ears flicking in response to the music rather than trying to track Judy. Judy was moving, more to the eddies of aura than to the song itself. He could see the constellations in her aura as she made connections and tested them to see if any of them would lead her to Lyndon.

He made the mistake of looking at Lysandra exactly once, but that was enough. His fingers slipped off the strings and struck a wrong note. The array he'd been building was gone.

"I said I was out of practice," he remarked, and strummed a few notes to soothe whatever he'd unintentionally messed up.

Lysandra was no longer covering her mouth, but her eyes were still suspiciously wet. "How'd you know he liked that song?"

"Your son shares my good taste."

"Or it could be that foxes always make lucky guesses," Judy remarked, as dry as Sahara Square.

"Or maybe they're both in my nature. I just can't help being so awesome." When the room stopped vibrating, Nick paused his strumming. "Will that do, Exorcist Hopps, or do you need a full concert?"

"It wouldn't lead us to the right Lyndon Lynxington," Judy admitted.

Nick presented the guitar to Lysandra, who accepted it with both hands. Judy also bowed. "Thanks for your time Mrs Lynxington, Ms Lynxington. I'll let my superiors know we've done the sweep."

"Did - did that help? Could you find my son?"

Judy approached Lysandra to touch her on the shoulder. "Mrs Lynxington, the Lyndon you remember and this house remembers is not the Lyndon of today. If we find him, are you sure you want to know?"

"The Lyndon I know wouldn't have hurt anyone. I know he's probably not the same anymore. That's why I have to meet him."

They seemed to come to an understanding just looking at each other. Judy nodded. "I'll keep you updated then."

She stood and bowed again. Mrs Lynxington inclined her head in acknowledgement, a paw stroking the guitar on her lap. That was how they left the Lynxingtons.

They'd barely stepped into the streets of Happytown when Judy started and almost collided with Nick. "What is that?"

On the wall in front of them a feathered serpent had been painted in greens accented with yellows. As Nick watched, the painted snake slithered behind some metallic words before dropping its head atop of a T to blink slitted eyes at them.

"Oh no. Carrots we gotta go."

On the word "go", the graffiti snake flared its feathers before slithering onwards. Nick hurried after it. 

"Mama Odie is capable of that?" Judy exclaimed as she dashed to keep up.

"She's 197 years old, she's capable of anything. But I think it's the snake that's actually doing this."

This was setting the graffiti in motion so the words and pictures swirled in a riot of neon colours. Previously scribbled arrows helped spun the right way to point Nick and Judy in the right direction. Images bounced along with the snake. Words grouped and regrouped to form phrases Nick was too busy hurrying to read.

Finally the snake slithered around a squat apartment, winked at them, and faded into the wall. The rest of the graffiti rushed back to where it was.

"It's only 4 storeys," said Judy, as if she saw graffiti snakes disappearing into buildings everyday,and tugged Nick onwards.

Even with Judy's light steps, the wood of the apartment creaked around them like a tree swaying in a light breeze. None of the apartments they passed seemed to mind the racket, though Nick supposed the residents under the care of a medium would be too content to care about such things.

The staircase led straight to Mama Odie's door. They had scarcely touched the front step when someone called out from inside. "C'mon in! The door's unlocked."

Judy pushed the door open, even as static cracked over her paw as she did so. Here an invitation made the wards quiet but they were still active. Nick gestured for Judy to extend her aura and step in first. His antics met with a blank stare. He gave up and tiptoed in, wincing all the way. Judy followed after, closing the door as she did.

Nick had to visit Mama Odie a grand total of once, maybe twice, and every time the jars on display got to him. There were far too many eyeballs floating in them. It was more comforting to focus on the bob of Judy's ears as she drew ahead of him. From their movement and how they were perked up, it was clear Judy didn't share his qualms in looking around.

He was focused enough on her ears that he nearly tripped over her when Judy came to a stop. "Is that Mama Odie?" She whispered.

"Yeah that's me!" The black bear exclaimed, and promptly walked into the corner of a table. "I don't have rabbit ears but I can hear pretty darn well. It's my eyes that aren't doing so hot." She tapped her dark glasses with a claw for emphasis. "Juju! Juju! Where are you you bad boy? You were supposed to make the introductions!"

The snake reappeared, minus the feathers and the paint and plus an actual snake body. Judy squirmed a little as Mama Odie cooed over her pet snake and kissed it right on the mouth. Using the snake's tail as a leash, Mama Odie picked up her white skirt and made her way towards an oversized rattan chair that she threw herself into. "Let's get a little more comfy." The snake pulled up a whole variety of chairs. Nick settled in the comfiest armchair. Judy settled on something that was closer to a footstool. Mama Odie wriggled her feet so vigorously they cracked. "You'll have to excuse us ladies prattling on Wilde. It ain't every day that the bayou and the burrows meet!"

"My mom's really the medium of the family. I'm just here doing my own thing."

"Your mama taught you some Grade A modesty right there. How's the fam?"

"We're doing really well, thanks for asking. We'll be busy soon - summer's coming on."

"I can tell! Your aura looks nice and plump now." The black bear pinched the edges, using finger pads instead of claw tips. "You ought to head back home more often. Your guardian won't be much use to you right now. Ha! What a choice! But you were never one for doing things the easy way."

"What do you mean, Mama Odie?" Judy wondered.

Nick cleared his throat. "In our defense, Mama, we don't know things like you do. The whole past lives thing was pretty recent."

For his trouble he was whacked over the head with a stick. "There are things that you don't need a pot of gumbo to figure out. That's what comes of hiding your head in the sand! Things would have gone a lot easier if you'd bothered to ask."

"I haven't been liking the answers I've got lately," Nick grumbled as he rubbed his sore head. This was why he usually didn't speak to Mama Odie unless spoken to.

"That's cause you ain't asking the right questions. That goes for you too girl."

"But Mama Odie, I don't have any questions."

"You telling me that with a straight face after all you been through lately? Sure you do! Just today, the door gods told me you were looking for someone."

"They're really fine work Mama," Judy agreed. "But we don't want to trouble you."

"Those neck deep in trouble shouldn't be troubled about troubling others. Y'all going to accept my help, or you intend to muck around trying to figure things out?"

"So you'll help us find Lyndon Lynxington?"

"Ah ah ah." Mama Odie wagged a finger. "That's a job for Exorcist Hopps and Guardian Wilde. No, I'm here to answer a more basic question: what do you need?"

"It's not finding Lynxington then."

"Spoken like the daughter of a medium. Go on. Dig a little deeper."

Judy stared down at her hands. "Am I doing the right thing?"

"Ah, one of the hard questions. But that ain't the question either. Questions of right and wrong are bigger than you and I."

"Someone's got to set an example."

"I knew you gave your mama headaches girl, but it's another to see it!" To Nick she said, "I don't envy you your job as her guardian either. So, you want to take a stab at figuring out what you need?"

He glanced at Judy and was reminded of all the unasked and unanswered questions between them right now. "I think we have to figure out how to go on from here."

"I always knew you were a smart one Wilde. That's the closest anyone's ever got, though it's still a bit off. It don't matter. You'll get what I'm saying when I tell you two this: hold on when you get love and let go when you give it. In your hearts of hearts, you know what's right."

Despite Mama Odie's assertion Nick wasn't feeling very smart in figuring out what that meant. He glanced over at Judy and got a shake of her head in response.

If Mama Odie knew they were completely confused, she didn't let on. "I gotta check on my gumbo. C'mon along then."

 

Later, fed with gumbo and having heard more about mediums than Nick ever wanted to know, he found himself and Judy back on the streets. He glanced at Mama Odie's apartment and when he didn't see any graffiti moving he asked, "Did you figure out what she said?"

"No. My mom always said that's because we're not ready to hear the answer yet."

"No offense to your mom, but that sounds like me pulling one of my cons." For that, Nick earned himself a punch in the arm. "Ow, someone's plenty awake for this time of night."

"We still have a few places to get to. The Johnsons usually stopped at the Zootopia University next."

"Ah, the Zoo."

"Are they really that rowdy?"

"Carrots, your Bunnyburrow roots are showing," Nick couldn't help crowing. "See, here in Zootopia we love our alphabet soup. Zootopia University is the ZU, and if you say that three times fast - "

Judy jabbed an excited finger at Nick, "You get Zoo! Because it sounds like it!"

"We'll make a proper Zootopian out of you yet." They reached the larger street, where it was more apparent night had completely fallen. "What do you think Carrots? You want to brave these dark streets?"

She fished out her phone and checked her GPS. "It's not that far."

"C'mon, let's show them what a big bad exorcist looks like."

If the watching eyes bothered Judy this time, she didn't show it in the way she strode ahead with her head up high. This was Judy on a mission. He suspected that she'd seen something during his impromptu concert, but she wasn't sure enough of it to voice what it was. Hopefully whatever was at the ZU would help her put it into words.

Happytown didn't sleep, but that was nothing compared to the ZU. Nick hadn't attended ZU himself, but he'd observed enough of the students when Finn had still been figuring out the best places to sell pawpsicles. Students zombied through their classes during the day to come awake at night. When Judy and Nick finally left the rows of dodgy student housing, they found the place humming with students going about their business. Not too far away was the University Library with its lights still pouring from all windows.

Judy strode confidently towards that, even though her uniform and sword made it clear she was not a student. Their presence attracted a lot of stares, whispers and camera phones.

"You know, you ought to make more appearances in full uniform outside of graveyards and deserted places."

"I'd never get any work done, and you'd be too busy posing for the camera."

"They haven't made a camera yet that could capture my full glory."

"You look fine enough on those posters." Judy nodded to one set left up from a past recruitment drive.

"Carrots, that is a classic example of a bad photo. My fur is dull and my eyes aren't green enough. I must say the pose looks good -"

"Keep posing and I'll leave you outside the library."

At this hour the Library wasn't staffed. Judy joined the students with their key cards, gaining access with a pin code scribbled on her map. Inside the library, tables and shelves warred for space. Most of the students were clearly in favour of the tables, heading straight to them to set up their laptops. That plus the hush made it seem like the last place to plan a revolution.

Nick and Judy headed towards the higher levels with discussion rooms lining the glass front that faced one of the lawns. These were filled with students too.

"That might be a problem," Nick commented as he saw how the presence of different mammals disturbed the make up of the library. If even he could tell, the presence of the students must be playing merry havoc on an aura level.

"I don't see any notes from the Johnsons."

"Thomson and Thompson don't know everything."

"Now that's just mean. The Johnsons more competent than them."

"It's a better nickname than J&J," said Nick. He had to agree with Judy on the Johnson's competence when they finally reached the right discussion room. "Ah, the old Hoof and Paw."

In the very last discussion room, someone had plonked a sculpture of the purported first handshake between predator and prey on the table. If the lump of metal depicting severed hands held aloof by olive branches didn't deter the students from using the room, the lack of chairs and the presence of lengthy educational material did the rest of the job. It was Judy who looked around this time, reading the exhibited write-ups on the students who had used this room to organise their protests with interest.

Nick drifted over to the window, unwilling to read about a Zootopia he'd lived in and the sacrifices that had changed it. "Now there's a sight to spark a revolution," he quipped.

Judy joined him at the window that overlooked the low tidy buildings of the university contrasted against the colourful sprawl of Happy town beyond. "Even though this was the first university to accept predators, it must have been a harsh reminder that the place they came from hadn't gotten any better."

"And that's why they dumped a sculpture in front of it. I don't suppose that hunk of metal they call art is what we're here for, even if it's better than the flat teeth sharp teeth logo they tried once, it made all the kids cry."

"That's not how any of them should be remembered!" Judy blurted. "They had family! They had friends! They - "

"Started a bloody revolution. With emphasis on the bloody."

"How can you say that after you met Mrs Lynxington? Look! See? See this? Does this look like a murderer to you?" Judy jabbed a finger at a nearby photo. Lynxington wasn't the main subject or smiling as widely as he had been in his family photos, but he was still different from the Lynxington they saw. Next to him, Roni was mid wave in trying to grab the camera's attention and smiling in a way that didn't give Nick the heebe jeebes. Otariids was grinning at a fuzzy shawl she was knitting. As far as photos of plotting a revolution went, it was decidedly domestic.

"It's the same thing you told Mrs Lynxington. The Lyndon from the photo is not the Lyndon of today. You should know that best."

Judy pulled something from her pocket. "I don't believe someone should be defined by something I can't even show their mother."

In the middle of the flannel cloth lay a long thin pin. Nick didn't have to be aura sensitive to tell this was one of the pins buried with Lynxington.

"The aura on this wasn't the aura we felt in his apartment or in this room. Whatever Lynxington is now isn't all he has to be."

"He could have been the cutest widdle kitten, but you've seen his aura now, you think he's gonna go back to that?"

"You went dark in Little Rodentia, but you came back."

Nick turned his back on the photo. "I'm going to pretend you didn't insult me by comparing me to Lynxington - "

"What's wrong with being compared to someone who tried to make a change to the world?" Judy made a broad gesture that encompassed the whole room. "Here's evidence of his activism - "

"Which he killed mammals over, or you wouldn't be here!" Nick hadn't meant to turn and snap at Judy, but the damage was already done - she had stepped back from him. "I didn't mean that reincarnation is a bad thing. I just meant that if Lynxington hadn't interfered, you'll probably be an old grandmother surrounded by kits."

"Officer Hopps and I don't seem to care much for the family way. I - I don't know why he killed my past self. But someone has to give him a chance to do the right thing."

"He's already made his choice when he started killing people. Murder isn't something you can come back from."

"He was shut in a box with more like this before he got the chance!" Judy brandished the pin.

"I hate pins as much as the next spirit but he was killing mammals even before he was shut away."

"Then shouldn't he be killing more mammals now after being buried with pins for so long? Something's not adding up here. Maybe he doesn't want to be a murderer any longer and he just doesn't know how."

"And why is that your problem exactly?"

Judy busied herself with keeping the pin away. Nick waited, arms folded, hoping that she didn't have a ready answer to that.

But this was Judy after all. She took a deep breath, then said, "The thing is, Lynxington was already a spirit when he killed my past life. The details surrounding his death are unclear, but - but I was there then."

"So you think you're the one who murdered him?"

"I've already made one wrong choice in that life Nick. Who's to say I didn't make more?"

Nick raised his paws to his temple, then gave up and dropped his hands. "So you're saying Lynxington murdered you because you got him first? Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds?"

"Well it is possible - "

"Newsflash Carrots, not everything happens because of you. Maybe it's time for you to step back and let other people do the work because you are clearly too invested in this story you've cooked up - "

"You didn't believe me about Officer Hopps, but it was true! You know what your problem is? You don't dare to face up to the past."

With that, Judy stormed off. Nick wanted to just let her go, make his way back to his grave under the bridge and forget about annoying rabbits. But knowing Judy, she was headed right back to Happytown in the middle of the night to keep searching. If Lynxington didn't kill her, that might do it.

Sure enough, when he caught up with her Judy was just crossing over to the bad side of the street. "Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.

"To find Lynxington and ask him exactly what happened, since I'm cooking up stories."

"Fine. Let's spin out your scenario. Say you do get to Lynxington and his oozing black aura and you say to him I can clean that right up! All you have to do is stop killing and live in peace and harmony with your fellow mammals! And he decides oh this rabbit I killed before would make a really good example of how much I don't want to change - then what?"

Judy didn't pause in her strides. "I guess I'll be dead and you'll be right."

"T-this is your life we're talking about here Carrots!"

"If that's the price I have to pay to doing the right thing, I'll give it."

"So you're going to offer Lynxington the same deal that you offered me in your family graveyard? For the supposed wrongs you've done you're going to give up your life? Well you can't go offering your life to everyone." Tired of her striding ahead of him, he darted in front of her to make her stop. Jabbing a finger at her for emphasis, he said, "Judy Hopps, your life is mine."

He'd meant it as a figure of speech. He'd forgotten that the offer she made in her family graveyard was still open.

His assertion in his own neighbourhood was sufficient enough answer to the offer she'd made. He could feel the new link forming between them. For a moment, Judy's narrowed eyes convinced Nick that she would protest, that she would challenge him on whether he really meant it and he could take back his words - 

Then her shoulders slumped and she looked right him as she replied, "On my word."

Their new reality came crashing down around them. Nick tried not to flinch at his awareness of his new responsibility. "I think we did exactly what Mama Odie told us not to do."

"I don't know. Maybe you were supposed to hold on and I was supposed to let go." Judy sighed and the last of her anger seeped out of her aura and posture. "Am I allowed to look for Lynxington or do you still think it's a death wish?"

"I need to think about it." Nick was remembering Little Rodentia when he'd looked into the blue eyes of Officer Hopps. "But if it's the past we want to know about, I believe I have a package waiting for me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist bringing in Mama Odie the blind voodoo lady from her boat in a tree in the bayou. 
> 
> Next stop - Koslov's in Tundratown - will be in two week's time. RL wants some attention.


	8. Take my whole life too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early chapter is early. Tundratown has been a riot to write. Spelling of Koslov taken from the Disney wikia, I'm not actually sure which is right...

The rest of the locations told Nick and Judy the same thing - the aura in these places didn't match the aura of the Lynxington of today. After Judy finished up her report on that, it was morning rush hour by the time they got to Tundratown. The only upside to dodging snowmobiles and heavy trucks was that the shops were open.

"Why did you veto my parka?" Judy grumbled as she browsed the winter wear on display for something that fit but also could fit her sword underneath. "It's warm, it's _in my size_ \- "

"It says ZED on the back," Nick reminded her. "It's one thing to visit mediums in the middle of the night, but in the day where everyone can see? And it's Koslov with known ties to vampires? The rumour mill would explode itself in excitement as it predicted power struggles, gang wars, armageddon!"

"All over one parka." Judy tossed the oversized one she'd been looking at back on the rack with a sigh.

"You could always try a hat." Nick plucked a towering furry one off the display. "You could fit your entire body in here!"

"And then you'd wear the hat with me in it to Koslov's?"

"Well I was actually thinking of cutting arm and neck holes in this, but sure." He spun the hat as he smirked down at her. "I've always wanted to pull a rabbit out of a hat."

"I've always wondered if it's possible to feed a fox his own tail. I guess we can't always try what we want." She stomped past him, having given up and resigned herself to the indignity of the children's section.

"You don't actually have to come along Carrots." Nick floated after her into the land of frills and ruffles. "You're going to run yourself ragged again if you keep on going when you're supposed to be resting."

"I'm curious about this package," Judy marched past rows of tulle with her eyes fixed on the coldwear section decorated with snowflakes. "What made you want to collect it now?"

"Before I ditched the body I wasn't spiritually sensitive. As far as I know from being on the scene and from peeking at police files, the tiger that was killed in my speakeasy didn't have claw marks matching any known animal. It could have been spirits."

"There was no ZED then, so that angle wouldn't have been covered. If there was another murderous spirit, it could have murdered Lynxington too."

"That's a huge leap in your logic Whiskers."

"Hey! It could be true."

"Uh huh, and Night howlers are wolves. I'm just saying that there were a few mysterious murders taking place in our past. I thought we'd start with the murder we know something about as training wheels before tackling the big question."

"So this isn't about Officer Hopps?"

"What about Officer Hopps?"

"I remember telling you you needed to compete the investigation by heading to Tundratown."

That was not something Judy had said.

He spun Judy around by her shoulder. The surprised eyes that met his were purple not blue. "How did you know?"

"Know what? I was just trying to remember..." Judy trailed off.

"Remember?"

"I remember what I said Wilde," said Officer Hopps in Judy's voice. Then Judy shook herself and was 100% Judy again. "Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts again. Ugh I can't remember what happened when I chased you through Little Rodentia."

Nick narrowed his eyes at Judy. "You aren't supposed to remember. Didn't you mention your mother had horror stories about an Aunt Alice?"

Judy rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to start searching for a Wonderland. I'm just wondering what I overheard."

"Well this has nothing to do with Officer Hips so you don't need to recall. Maybe you should go home Carrots."

"Officer Hips again huh?" He couldn't tell if this was Judy or the officer. Then the rabbit noticed a light blue parka and seized it. "Well I've got my winter wear so you're not getting rid of me that easily," said Judy, with a grin Nick didn't feel like sharing.

"Let's make it snappy then," said Nick, hoping that what he thought he had experienced was a fluke.

 

Heading in the general direction of their destination was easy - there were a surprising number of bankers making their way to Snow Bank. Trying to peel away down a side lane was a lot harder, especially since most of the bankers were larger sized herd animals. Nick and Judy barely managed to avoid stomping hooves in their detour.

Compared to the streets outside with sun glinting off the snow, the alley was dirty, damp and smelled so strongly of fish that even Judy's less sensitive nose could pick it up.

"You bring me to the nicest places," Judy remarked.

"Hey this is nothing compared to Cliffside."

"Uh huh. What about the naturalist club?"

"Is the naturalist club a wholesome friendly place compared to Cliffside? Yes, yes it is. Don't judge Koslov by this, it gets better."

They came to a solid iron door. At Nick's gesture, Judy knocked. A rectanglar peep hole was pulled aside so a suspicious polar bear could scowl over their heads, then refocus on them.

"We're looking for Koslov. Tell him it's Nick Wilde," said Nick. The polar bear slammed the peep hole shut.

He was gone long enough that Judy had started tapping her foot. Their patience was rewarded when the door swung open seemingly of its own accord.

Koslov didn't believe in heaters in this part of the building, so despite Judy's parka her breath came out misted. He also didn't believe in lights, leaving Judy to walk in what must have seemed like pitch darkness to her. Nick, having the benefit of night vision, guided her out of the way of a table.

"So this is supposed to be better than Cliffside."

"Wait for it."

Nick had to admit the better parts would be while in coming. They had come by the back way, and now they were passing the better lit food preparation area. That just made it obvious that fish were being hacked open with resounding whacks and sliced beetroot ran red.

Then they passed the stoves and everything turned on its head. Instead of being directed to focus on the macabre, the senses were now invited to focus on the inviting smells of cooking and the warmth of fire.

Judy shot a look at Nick. "This isn't a glamour." The questioning tilt of her head invited Nick to correct her if she was wrong.

"Nope. This would be glamour." Nick snapped his fingers and suddenly the smell of cooking closely resembled the smell of grandmother's cooking, even if Granny had never used beets. Nick snapped his fingers again and the smell reverted back to its original scent, although it was still inviting. "Koslov has turned shields into a fine art."

"He shields whatever he doesn't want you to focus on."

"And the further in you get, the better the level of hospitality." As one of the wait staff, a spotted seal, held open the door for them, Nick remarked, "Koslov must really like you, he rarely invites me this far."

They walked into a whoosh of warmth. Here the cooking fires had given way to the warmth of fireplaces, aided by the rich red of the decor. Nick wasn't sensitive to auras, but he was observant enough to spot how the animals around them seemed to be talking louder than the lively hum seemed to suggest. More shields were at play here.

Koslov was seated by the window. Other seal servers pulled out the chairs opposite as Nick and Judy approached. The one helping Judy left with her parka obscuring her sword.

"Look at the children," said Koslov once they were seated. "They have so many things to play with, and yet they're happiest with just snow."

Tundratown's climate controls were set to late spring now, but Snow Palace ran by its own rules. Its indoor snow slopes were popular all year round. Across from the window they were seated at, kids of different species were having a snowball fight.

Koslov cupped his hands and peered through it. "Put a shield around that, and it would be a nice little snow globe."

"Absolutely lovely until their parents want them back."

Koslov laughed long and deep as if it were all a huge joke. Despite the volume, no one looked up at them. "Said the fox who hasn't collected his own things."

"Funnily enough, that's why we're here."

"After all this time, and so blunt about it. I haven't even offered you food."

"There was an awful lot of fish back there," Judy remarked.

"We came by the business door, so we thought we'd do you the favour of being direct."

"Still. Allow me to offer you some vegetarian fare while you enlighten me on why you want your package now."

Although they were on Koslov's turf, Nick couldn't look at him without thinking Mr Big. "It's simple enough. After you kindly reminded me in Little Rodentia, I thought I shouldn't impose on your hospitality after all. Including the borscht."

"He drove me half crazy with his fretting while we were busy with work." Between working with Nick and lying on behalf of siblings, given sufficient incentive and lead time Judy could lie like a pro. Apparently Nick had dropped enough hints for her to back him up.

"My father would have been very sad to hear that. I still remember playing in Wilde Times, and his hope that you could make the park as big as Snow Palace. Miss Hopps here is part of Mr Big's family. As my father would have said, that makes us one big happy family no?"

Apparently the one thing that hadn't changed in 50 years was Koslov's ability to guilt trip, even though he no longer had the puppy eyes to back it up.

"What do you want Koslov?"

"My father never told me what was inside the box, and he was adamant only you should open it. For 50 years I've followed his wishes. But I do not think my father would mind if you opened the box in front of me."

This was exactly what Nick had been trying to avoid. Given that his past seemed to consist entirely of cans of worms, he'd hoped to open them in relative private. He trusted Judy, but Koslov was still too involved in his past and more importantly, Mr Big.

Well, he couldn't let it show that it got to him.

"Why not?" Nick said with a deliberate shrug. "If we're family, we'd know how to keep secrets. Just the way you've kept this package all this while, exactly the way Daddy wanted it."

"All these years yet you have not learnt to be direct. If it's privacy you desire, that can be arranged." Koslov waved a server over and whispered in his ear. He hurried ahead as Koslov invited Nick and Judy to follow in the same direction.

They went through carpeted corridors past private rooms that were empty this early in the morning. Each one showed the same obsession with heavy comfortable red furnishings In the furthest room, the staff had laid out three plates of food arranged to showcase how delicious they were. Making an awkward centrepiece was a box tied with string.

Koslov entered that room and sank into the biggest armchair, though the smaller armchairs he had arranged for them seemed to contain exactly the same amount of cushion. Nick almost thought he had to go ghostly to escape before its softness finally rearranged itself into a seat. Next to him, Judy had struggled her way to freedom earlier.

"Please help yourselves."

Nick skipped over the bagels and shakshouka for the only thing he didn't recognise, which turned out to be wrapped deliciousness of some kind of pancake around cheese. That steadied his nerves, and while they still held he grabbed the box.

It was heavier than it looked - he used a little more aura to become more solid in order to tug the box into his lap. The string came loose with a yank, and he nicked open the tape holding the lid shut with a claw.

Inside were more boxes. Flat rectangular boxes.

"Is your father still upset I picked the diamonds out of the borscht without eating it? I told him there was too much fish in the borscht, there's no need to harp 50 years on with necklace boxes -" Nick trailed off as he picked up one of the boxes. They were too heavy to be empty, and too light to be actual necklaces. In fact, Nick had done collar check at Wilde Times enough times himself to be familiar with that weight.

"Why did your father give me a box of collars?" He snapped.

Judy immediately came over to take the package from Nick, though she almost dropped it herself. She dumped it on the neutral ground that was the table, and stepped back. "The - the collars of the Original 10 are in there. I sensed their aura."

Nick never even considered that the Original 10 and Koslov could be related, but the box was proof. "Did they work for your father?"

"When my father and Mr Big discussed the Original 10, they were always mentioned as outsiders and not in the same way that we discussed our men. Besides is that all there is in the box?"

Judy took a deep breath, and reached in to pull out three particular boxes. "This is yours," she said, laying that box on Nick's side. The other two she put near Koslov. "These belonged to you and your father."

Nick grabbed the package and upended it, hoping for a note, or anything. Instead he sent boxes flying open to spill their contents. Judy picked up one of the cards that had spilled out of a box. "With this collar Zootopia welcomes you?" she read, hesitating over each word.

"With this collar Zootopia celebrates you. With this collar Zootopia accepts you." Koslov drummed his fingers on his arm rest even though he was showing claw. "Once I was a fool to believe in such lies. Now I am not."

Judy turned to Nick, who really wished she wasn't looking at him right now, not when he wanted to curl in on himself and hurts he thought had time to heal. It had been years since Nick had been to a taming party, even longer if you counted from his own taming party, but the memories still stung. "What do you think Mr Koslov could have wanted in sending this package?" Judy finally settled on asking, looking away from Nick so he had the choice not to answer.

"My father would only say the package would help Wilde clear his name. No more." When Morris Koslov spoke again, he almost sounded like the cub he had not been in ages. "You know everything and everyone, don't you?"

Nick stared down at the carpet. "Not anymore."

Silence fell over them as no ready solution presented itself. Judy was the only one moving, peering at a collar as if fascinated.

"GHR845," she murmured. "That number seems very familiar, I think I saw it somewhere before. Maybe at ZPD? Officer Hopps had a notebook of numbers. GHR845, GHR845..."

Then she straightened. "GHR845," said Judy, looking at them with blue eyes that weren't her own. "That's the serial number on the collar of the tiger that was mauled in your speakeasy. 12 of these collars are from the GHR series, that means the-" On the last her words slurred. "- the Original 10..." Judy narrowed now purple eyes. "Wait, why am I talking about them?"

"It seems you are still channelling the spirit you called upon in Little Rodentia." Koslov kept his voice even, and his polar bear features did not convey emotion.

"That was Officer Hips, Whiskers. For the third time now." Nick made himself look back at Judy despite the disbelief he was met with. His responsibilities as her guardian, his responsibility over her life now, demanded no less. "It happens every time you try to remember anything that Officer Hips knows about."

"So, even in the shop just now?"

Nick nodded. Judy would understand.

Koslov stood. "I suggest the both of you stay here until Miss Hopps gets that spirit under control."

Nick glanced at Judy, who shook her head. So Nick skipped enlightening Koslov on the true nature of the "spirit" and said, "That would take time that we don't have."

"I'll rather work on it in my own space," said Judy, slipping out of the chair.

The reason why polar bears were popular as bodyguards and in the police were that they could move fast when they had to. Koslov was already blocking the door. He'd grown as big as his father from the tiny cub Nick first knew him as. "Then as my father would say, I shall ask not so nicely. You will stay here."

He slammed the door, and the shield on the room was immediately activated.

"Argh!" Judy banged on the shield, as if aura covered fists could help.

"Give it up Carrots. His shields are capable of holding up to even Mr Big's aura."

Judy thumped her foot in exasperation. "I shouldn't have let them take my sword."

Nick started packing the collars back into the box. "I'm sorry I have such shitty taste in company. Current company exempted."

"I don't know about that." Judy joined Nick in picking up. "If we hadn't fought last night, maybe you wouldn't have thought about collecting the package. Maybe the past should stay in the past. Especially with my past - "

Nick put a finger to Judy's lips. "Koslov inherited this place from his father. I wouldn't be too surprised if the walls could talk to him."

"My family has made you sufficiently paranoid." She hesitated over the collars belonging to the Koslovs. "Is it - is it alright to ask what's the deal with Mr Koslov? I didn't know you knew him before Mr Big."

"It's not a very elaborate story Carrots. I was your usual young fox from Happytown - dreaming bigger things than my wallet would allow. I was emotionally unbalanced enough to think that anyone would care. Even though I was wearing one of these." Nick waved a collar he was holding. "And I was reckless enough to find the most feared crime boss in Tundratown then - Boris Koslov."

"Right away?"

"I was thrown out of a bank by a giant rhino when I was a kid Carrots. I don't like those places. No, if I was even going to have a chance it had to be with Koslov. So I made a model of Wilde Times and made it even bigger and better than the Suitopia I made for good old Dad - and I guess Koslov was feeling a little reckless too. He gave me the money."

"And you built Wilde Times."

"He was almost as proud as I was. He was always bringing people around. He brought Morris round the most. Morris was just a wide eyed little goober then."

"I guess even the largest polar bear starts out small."

"The smallest thing. All the cuteness of Finnick, except Morris' cuteness was both on the inside and out."

"Thank you for not using a bunny as an example."

"Are you jealous? Should I call you a c- "

He had a box shoved into his gut instead. "You haven't been tidying since you started talking."

They packed boxes in companionable silence. When Judy reached the last box, she toyed with it instead of putting it back. "Why did you think Boris Koslov would know what happened at Wilde Times?"

"Boris Koslov hated to make bad investments. If there was any information he could have gotten his hands on to keep Wilde Times from going under so he could get his money back, he would have it. It helps he was at Wilde Times when the mauled body of the tiger was found. I guess maybe he was spirit sensitive too. His son is now a powerful medium and he was interested in what happened with the Original 10."

"If only he was here to explain."

"Boris Koslov has moved on. I don't know what is Morris Koslov's deal in keeping us here. You think you know a guy." Nick sighed and leaned against the shield where it met the wall. As he was now, the shield read as a solid smooth surface to him, capable of holding even Judy up.

Judy put the last box back into the package. "Maybe Morris Koslov thought we might find something that implicated his father. If we had these at Wilde Times, we could get the invoked memory to show us exactly what happened with the tiger's collar." She tied the box shut, then backed away from it with a regretful sigh. "But it seems Morris Koslov wants the past to stay in the past too."

"He could have told us earlier, it would have saved us the trouble of digging it up."

"This coming from a fox who just collected his 50 year old parcel."

"What can I say Hopps? Sometimes good things come to those who wait."

"Let's hope something good comes of waiting now." Judy flopped down into the largest armchair so she was able to stretch out in the seat. "Do you think a good night's sleep would count?"

"My mom used to say once you started digging, don't stop halfway. If you do, you'd end up with a hole instead of a den." Nick ran his claws lightly over the shield. "How fast do you think you can run with that package?"

"I carry around a great big sword all day, a package is nothing." She hopped down and tucked the package under her arm, primed for a dash. Then she groaned. "But I'll need to grab my sword too."

"Yes you'll need it."

"- you're just going to break the shield aren't you? There's no need to fight Koslov."

"Dumb bunny. It's you I'm worried about. When the shield drops, I want you to go straight to Wilde Times. Don't look back."

"Nick, what - "

He turned to the shield, thought of collars and Officer Hopps and the mystery of his death that just refused to be solved, and let the darkness dominate.

Nick's claws, now narrowed to needle fine tips, tapped the shield. With his senses enhanced by his dark aura, it no longer seemed as smooth as before. But this wasn't a quick shield of an exorcist set up to deflect a spirit so that it could be followed up by a sword. This was a shield by a master in his ancestral home, meant to last.

Still Nick worried at the shield, letting a growl slip between sharpened teeth. Cracks began to show as he worked, and he paused now and then to twist his aura into the cracks. The healthy aura curled away from his darkened aura, leaving more and more gaps.

Finally, the shield shattered around him. Nick sprang for freedom, only to be beaten to it by a grey rabbit throwing open the door as she ran.

Part of him was pleased that Judy had taken his advice. The other part was curious why she smelt like a target, even when she wasn't channelling Officer Hopps.

He darted after her, not caring that he almost bowled down one of the seal servers. Despite the shields in the restaurant the low hum had given way to shouting. Nick didn't care. He was running down the straight, and he would be able to catch up with the rabbit soon. That was, if there wasn't a polar bear standing in the way.

Koslov looked between Nick and Judy fleeing in the distance, then turned back to Nick as Nick slid to a halt. "Wilde. Stop before you do something you regret."

"Was this why you shut me away?" Nick gestured to himself as he was now - a dark spirit with a thirst for vengeance.

"You're not the only dark spirit I have to worry about. Stay behind the shield so I can be sure where you are."

"The trouble is when you don't ask nicely, I don't have to answer you nicely. I'm leaving and you can't stop me."

Koslov did try, snapping off a shield that Nick dodged. The thing with shields was that they took a long time to set up, while Nick needed only a moment to disappear. He slipped between the warmth and cold, the living and the dead. Even if Judy hadn't handed him her life he might have felt her anyway, balanced as she was between her present and past lives. Nick sidled in her direction, wondering why she was headed away from the way that they'd come.

When he reappeared, he found himself in one of the fancier ballrooms where the chandeliers looked like ice crystals but were probably made of something more expensive. The entire place had been done up to look like the Artic, complete with the ballroom floor having been flooded with water to mimic sea water. Apart from the stage that was fixed, the tables had been set on bits of floor resembling ice floes that moved freely through the water. They were drifting now, having been sent in motion by a running rabbit. He'd need to float across the ballroom if he wanted to catch up with Judy.

"That's a good look on you."

Nick turned towards the voice that had come from the band area next to the stage. Lynxington strolled in with Otariids on his arm. Roni scrambled up onto Lynxington's shoulder to get a better look at Nick. "Aww, it's no fun if you take off the mask yourself!" Roni whined.

"I had to. I had to set an example of how to make going dark look good." Nick pretended to buff his claws on his formal jacket to divert a bit of attention to figuring out where Judy was. She'd already left the ballroom, which had to be good enough. "Surely you aren't here for little old me? Or are you looking to recruit dark spirits to join your band? If I join, I vote to rename the gang as Wilde's Eleven."

Otariids laughed so loudly that the sound set the chandeliers to tinkling. "What? It's funny!" she said when her two companions glared at her.

"We don't need you to join us," said Lynxington. "You just have to tell us where Judy Hopps is going."

"So you know her name."

"She introduced herself at the last fight. I suppose you were too busy to notice."

"Why do you need to know where she's gone?"

"We're throwing her a welcome party!" said Roni. Yep, his smile was definitely giving Nick the heebie jeebies now. This wasn't the trio that Nick had seen in the photo, which made it even more important to keep them away from Judy.

"If you're that friendly with her, you wouldn't need me to tell you where she's gone, she'd have told you herself."

"She's not here." The lynx drew away from his friends and bounded as soft as snow onto the table drifting closest to him. "You are. You'll tell us where she's going."

The trouble with disappearing was that it disturbed the surroundings, creating the vibrations that Lynxington craved so much. Besides, there were the others to think of. Otariids had slipped into the water, and the way Roni was dragging his claws across the hand rail of the band area probably explained why Nick's darker impulses were looking like a better and better idea now. But they had been a bunch of university students that maybe had made it to Koslov's restaurant at most. Nick had worked with the Koslovs enough to know the mechanisms behind this particular ballroom. The tables weren't drifting on water for a power show alone.

"I wouldn't assume. You know it makes an ass out of you and me," Nick quipped, and flipped the switch.

The tables lurched into motion. Nick took the distraction to disappear by balancing on the edge between land and water -

Only to be disrupted by Otariids. "Too bad! Water's my thing," she said, before tossing Nick back into the ballroom.

Nick slid off the table he hit quick enough to avoid Lynxington's pounce. Roni peeked out from under the tablecloth. "Things would be a lot easier if you gave in to your urge and we _hunted the rabbit together_."

Nick leapt to the next table before the thought could take hold.

"Judy Hopps isn't worthy of your protection," said Lynxington. "There are three of us to one of you. If you persist, we'll finish you off and move on to the rabbit."

Nick straightened his suit and tie with a smirk. "The thing about long odds is that there's still an off-chance things can work out in my favour."

The motion of the tables on the water was meant to give everyone the chance to see the stage better. Once his table was close enough to the stage, Nick hit the lights with the intention to blind.

He could probably have disappeared in the resulting distraction. But they'd mentioned Judy, and Nick's darker side wanted to make them pay.

He reappeared with his pounce sending both him and Roni into the water. "Aww, did you forget spirits don't need to breathe?" Roni cooed up at him. "Or did you just want to get me alone?"

Nick grinned wide enough to show all his teeth. "You can still feel like you're drowning," he told Roni, and snapped his fingers to activate that very glamour.

Nick left Roni struggling and ignored Otariids who was diving past Nick to get to Roni. Lynxington was already prepared for Nick, having sensed the disturbance in the water. Nick took a hard swat to the face but threw enough ice water in Lynxington's face that Lynxington was unable to dodge the swipe that followed immediately after and left deep gorges in Lynxington's cheek. The lynx sprang back to another table, reassessing the new threat that Nick posed himself as. Nick took his time, landing lightly on the table that Lynxington had left.

"You see, while you've been rotting away in a box, I've been out and about in the big bad world." Nick took one step forward, and Lynxington stepped back. "You make one move, and I'll show you why Mr Big likes this part of me best. Just like I did with your friend."

"You have more in common with us that with that rabbit. Why are you fighting us?"

"The thing is, Judy Hopps' life is mine. You can't have it. So go on Pointy Ears. Make my day."

The table that Nick was on bobbed under new weight before a shield sprang up around him.

Not caring that her back was to Nick, Judy drew her sword in the next move and pointed it at Lynxington. "Nobody move."

"Do you have a death wish?" Nick demanded. She'd drawn the shield to enclose the both of them together again. Now more than ever he could smell the rabbit that had gotten him killed in uneasy counterpoint with the rabbit who'd offered him her life. Nick's darker senses, frustrated that they hadn't been allowed a chance at Lynxington, started to pick out Judy's weak points to see if she was a viable option.

"I didn't want you to do something you'd regret." How she remained calm when she was closed in with a dark spirit that could kill her was beyond Nick. Unlike that time in Little Rodentia, it was steely determination that kept her going now instead of guilt. To Lynxington she asked, "What do you want?"

"You're finally the right rabbit. If you come with me, together we can uncover the truth behind your death all those years ago."

"Am I hearing right?" Nick demanded of Lynxington. "Because to me, that sounds like you don't know what happened either."

"He doesn't," said Judy. "He needs me to recreate the riot. If I come with you, will you continue to leave everyone alone?"

"On my word," said Lynxington, though he was looking at Nick as he said that.

It was good enough for Judy to sheathe her sword. She turned to Nick and held out the package. "You'll need this to solve the case of your own death."

Nick refused to take it. "What? Carrots you can't go with him."

Judy set the package down at Nick's feet. "You know collars better than I do. You're Nick Wilde of Wilde Times, you figured out collars even before I was born. You can solve this without me."

Nick pulled Judy up to look her in the eyes. "That's not my point Hopps! You're recreating the moment of your death!"

"I know. Mom saw that it might come to this."

No wonder Mrs Hopps had looked so wrecked when they'd gone back to Bunnyburrow. Nick had been asking the wrong questions all along, so worried about what he would do when he should have been worrying about what Lynxington, no, what Judy would do.

While he was caught up in his thoughts, Judy unbuckled her sword and laid it on top of the package. "Hold onto this for me."

"You're going off with your murderer without your sword."

"I have Clawhauser's talismans. And I can't lose my life, I already promised it to you." Judy chuckled weakly.

" _Judy._ "

Nick shook her in the hopes that it would bring her to her senses, but Judy continued, "You heard Lynxington. He won't hurt anyone as long as I'm with him. Nick, even if I'm not responsible for the death of all those mammals over the years, at least I can be comforted I helped to stop this."

"It doesn't have to be you. Look we can get Koslov to hold them here, bring in the ZED - "

"And seal them away for another 50 years? Leave the problems to our next lives?" Judy shook her head. "This has already waited long enough. Nick, you already tried holding on. Maybe it's time to try letting go."

Nick just shook his head. Judy reached up to touch the side of his face. "Please. You know how much I trust you. This time, trust me."

He leaned into her paw, her aura comforting where his was not. "I hate this."

"I know. I hate this too." Judy was sniffling now. "H-hey when I come back for my sword, tell me all about how you solved the mystery of the collars ok? Don't leave out a single detail."

"You better bring along the biggest sweetest cup of coffee from Café Reggio, because the story's going to take a while. You hear?"

"OK." She stepped back, bit by bit, leaving Nick's paws to trail down her arms until all that was touching was the tip of their fingers.

Then even that was gone. Nick turned away so he didn't have to see them go. When he was sure he was alone he breathed out. "Judy."

The chandeliers tinkled, the only other sound in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want the long sad story about Wilde Times, [watch the whole clip here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDintNUUUk). If you just want to know how Nick got involved with Koslov, [watch Nick making a whole bunch of animal puns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otot3oVIGdI). For those new to taming parties, watch [this deleted scene](https://vimeo.com/167648053).
> 
> Every chapter has had a signature song so far. If you're curious, you can check out the chapter titles and listen to 'em. Koslov likes his Elvis Presley what can I say.
> 
> Pictures from the art book that inspired this chapter are likely to be up on [my tumblr](http://raynos.tumblr.com/), stay tuned!


	9. Wa-wa-wa-wa-Wonder

When evening rolled around again, Nick Wilde was in his office in Wilde Times instead of reporting for duty at ZED.

The first thing he'd done after leaving Judy was to read up more on the riots. The date leapt out at him - just three days from today. With the date so close, he knew Lynxington would wait for the anniversary. That gave him just the tiniest of leeway.

He'd tried waking Wilde Times to see if it would respond to the collar. Without an exorcist to guide the aura, the invoked memory went on as usual. So Judy's method wouldn't work.

He left the memory running as he went up to the office. Outside of the memories, all that was left was a table and a rickety chair that creaked under even the slight weight of a spirit.

These were good enough. He set the package he got on the table and pulled out the first box.

He recognised his own collar immediately from the scratch marks near the clasp - at one point he decided to see if he could scratch through the collar. A quick rummage of the desk drawers yielded only a screwdriver.

It would do. Nick could have opened up his collar even in his sleep. When he'd first gotten the scanner to open the collars, he'd taken apart his collar to see if he could make his own scanner, or key, or something. He hadn't dared to attempt opening up the scanner - getting one had already been a nightmare of red tape. It had been a bust since he'd found nothing that made collar check faster, but it had given him a thrill to know he could break the collar if he wanted to.

With his own collar in familiar pieces in front of him, Nick dove back into the box for collar GHR845. For all that it was a later model, it came apart in roughly the same way. It largely had the same parts, except for -

Nick held up the canister of fluid and its extensive network of tubing. "What are you?" He wondered.

 

Between dark spirits and mysterious mixtures, Nick thought it might be time to call on Madge Badger.

There weren't many doctors specialising in spirits, which was why Doctor Badger had been asked to work on a Nighthowler antidote even though she'd been in cahoots with Lionheart. She'd done it, and become famous in the process. The line of spirits that Nick zipped past was proof of that.

The receptionist didn't even look up when Nick arrived. "Look you have to join the line. The other spirits are doing just that."

"I'm here on ZED business."

"Uh huh pull the other one." The badger finally looked up. "NICK WILDE? THE GUARDIAN FROM THE NIGHTHOWLER CASE?"

Nick shrank back from the resulting screech. "Uh, yes?"

The badger grabbed his hand and pumped it. "Honey Badger, huge fan. You don't know how much you've helped me!"

"You're very welcome. You mind telling me what I helped you with?"

"Tell you? I'll show you!" She vaulted over the counter and trotted off in the opposite direction from the clinic. "Nice sword, are they letting spirits become exorcists now?"

"Uh." Self-conscious, Nick rubbed the strap of Judy's sword. It had seemed wrong to leave it lying around somehow. "I'm holding onto it for a friend. Swords don't really go well with the whole ghostly thing."

"Ha! That's right you have a whole disappearing shtick." She led him down a winding staircase that seemed to go on forever. Between Judy's sword and the package of collars he was carrying, Nick couldn't float his way down. Feeling that he was descending into the depths of physical exertion hell, Nick followed with a sigh.

The stairs finally bottomed out into a cavernous room that probably started life as a cellar, but had been completely filled with equipment and documents stacked on furniture. It looked like a mess due to the sheer number of things, even though everything was in neat piles, grouped, or labelled. Nick picked out his and Judy's faces a couple of times in the clutter. "It might be a bit late to ask, but are you a professional stalker?"

"Why would I stalk the good guys? If there's anyone I'm stalking, it's the sheep."

"The sheep." Nick stated in his blandest possible voice. "They're such a bunch of nefarious ne'er do wells."

"Exactly! For years I've been researching the invisible hand behind society. If predator-prey relations started with a handshake between equals, how did it devolve into uneasy fear? Collars, wars - I had a bunch of useless information that didn't tell me who the mastermind was!" Honey slammed her paws down on a table, sending documents flying.

"Darn it. What a bummer."

"AND THEN YOU AND JUDY HOPPS CAME ALONG," shouted Honey, grabbing Nick's collar. He really wished he could go ghostly right about now, but the package, while acting as a buffer between them, stopped him from doing so. "With the unmasking of Dawn Bellwether, it became obvious - the answer all along was SHEEP."

She jabbed a finger at a tacked up picture of a Nighthowler. "Who knows plants better than those that eat them? It has to be sheep!" Next was a picture of an ancient carving of a sheep. "Who is extensively referenced across all ancient civilizations? Sheep!" She yanked a picture of a crop circle from the pile with that very label and waved it in Nick's face. "Crop circles? Clearly created by grazing, SHEEP."

Nick nodded. "Uh huh. And have you tried replacing the word sheep with... any other species that eats grass?"

"That's the thing! They've been hiding under the ambiguous name of Grazers!"

“- not entirely disproving my point."

"Other prey species are just the fall guys, at every event there's been a sheep that got away -” Nick left her listing events as he spotted something that caught his eye. Setting down his package, he lifted aside scrawled notes on collars to uncover a box helpfully labelled "scanner".

He'd barely touched it when sharp badger claws nearly raked his paws while snatching it away. He held his paws up with claws sheathed as Honey glared at him.

"- you know anything about the GHR series of collars?" he hazarded.

"Yeah, the last series before the collars got yanked. What about it?"

"I have a box of those collars here."

"COLLARS PLURAL? Do you know how hard it is to get a hold of this stuff? They used to have parties to destroy the collars, that's why they're so rare!" She yanked out a box for a single collar from the same pile Nick had been digging in. "This is the only one I have. Was my granddad’s ha! It only survived cos he put it on a lion statue and imagined that was being shocked!"

"Charming," said Nick. "Well that's the trouble. I have some rare old collars but I have no idea if they are working. I'm sure I don't need to tell an expert like you how much more working collars are worth."

Honey was already staring dreamily into the distance. "If I had a working collar... I could tell if the sheep were trying mass electroconvulsive therapy on predators..."

"That’s the spirit," said Nick, trying to squash the paranoid part of him that wondered if she was right. "But seeing that I no longer have a pulse and I wouldn't subject a lady such as yourself to the barbaric practice of shocks, the scanner is the next best thing to see if there's a working battery."

"Does it need a battery to be unlocked?"

"The collar needs the wireless code from the scanner to unlock. So there needs to be enough battery for the collar's receiver to work."

Honey relaxed her death grip on the scanner by a millimetre. "I guess it's worth a try."

Nick produced one of the GHR collars with a flourish. He locked it and placed it on the table before gesturing for Honey to proceed. "Here, why don't you do it?"

"Me?"

"It's your scanner, and it would be an honour."

With her eyes firmly fixed on the collar, Honey freed the scanner from the box and aimed it at the collar. After some tense moments, the collar clicked open.

"Aww would you look at that?" said Honey in the same way as mother might have cooed over her kid's first step. "It works."

"It's a start. It might not be capable of shocks though."

"Is there any way to tell if it's still capable of shocks?"

"Well." Nick drew the sound out. "I might have something. It requires taking the collar apart. Just a little."

"There are more where this came from?"

"Ma'am, I promise you will get this back as good as new. Maybe even better."

"Fine. Knock yourself out."

"Got some tools?"

As it was, Honey had an entire toolkit's worth squirrelled away in various boxes. "But don't use the pliers. I'm going to make a device that'll yank out the sheep's teeth."

"Sure thing." Nick set to work, making sure to avoid the pliers. He detached and reattached things until he had bunch of wires ending in metal nubs. "Hold these please."

"What are these?"

"These pointy bits are the nefarious means by which our evil overlords tell if we're thinking naughty thoughts. The contact points read heart rate. The faster your heart is racing, the stronger deterrent you need."

"The shocks." She rolled the metal ends in her hand. "If you knew about these why didn't you take them off?"

"A locked collar that can't find a heartbeat used to send a message to our overlords that they had a predator corpse to collect, or a rebel they needed to put down. Let's not attract their attention shall we?"

"I like the way you think! So I'm not causing fireworks, what’s next?"

"Think about something that really gets your heart going. Tell me about Grazers."

"WHERE DO I START?"

Right on cue, electricity arched across the collar. A few stray sparks twisted up the wires Honey was holding, but not enough to cause any pain.

"THIS IS SO COOL where's my notebook I need to record the electricity patterns and - "

"Let go of the leads?" Nick suggested, keeping an eye on the still sparking collar. "We don't want to drain the battery at one go."

"Right!" She dropped the wires and Nick quickly opened the collar with the scanner. The electricity was dangerous, especially with the split water on the table.

... Had that been there before?

"Hey Ms Debunker, did you leave this on the table?"

"Great name!" Honey came over with a notebook and more tools that included a magnifying glass. She used that to peer at the liquid on the table. "It's nothing that I've seen before. Is the collar faulty and leaking because it's old?"

"There's something only the GHR series had that I wanted to ask about." Nick picked apart the collar more and showed Honey the canister. "I think the liquid came from here. Do you think the doctor might know what this is?"

"Ha! If you want the boring answer, you can ask my sister. But if you want to know what it is really for, just ask Honey right here."

"And what is the truth?"

"I don't know yet! BUT I WILL SOON."

Finding out the truth seemed to be a methodical process. Honey took multiple samples from the table and the canister, sticking indecipherable labels on them. She took two of the samples and two more from her stash and ran them through some kind of preparation process.

Nick gave up watching and started to flip through the notes and pictures lying around. He found himself gazing at a postcard from Golden Palm Hotel where Mayor Swinton had been gushing at an out of town celebrity about how great Animalia would be, and raving about the penthouse that she would arrange for the celebrity at no extra charge. The mayor really knew how to live it big. Nick had only been in Golden Palm Hotel once, and he hadn't forgotten its opulence. If he closed his eyes, he could remember the lush interior, the ornate front desk -

Someone hit him hard enough to send him flying off his chair.

He hit the ground before going ghostly to rise from the floor. Otariids glared him down, her aura radiating strongly enough that Honey's bunker was wavering around them.

Or was it?

Nick took a hold of the wavering image and tugged. The image of Honey's place fell away to show the exact scene from the postcard - the fountain in front of Golden Palm Hotel. Only Otariids remained unchanged. Her black dress was less of a sore thumb in this setting.

"That's why I've never seen you fight. You deal with dreams." If Nick concentrated, he could feel the chair he was sleeping in. "That was you that day in Savanna Central."

"Get your pawpsicles," Otariids mocked, her dream powers allowing her to mimic Nick's voice that he almost thought it was his own voice in his head. "I'm so charming that you just have to buy some pawpsicles."

"Objection. I have never put anything in the pawpsicles." He'd made that clear to Finnick, when they'd first come up with the idea of selling pawpsicles, that Nick would only use his glamours and charms on Finnick to ease the process of getting the jumbo pop.

When Otariids spoke again, it was without the dissonance of Nick's voice though he was uncomfortable with how close she was coming and with her words. "You didn't have to. You just had to give them the suggestion that they wanted something sweet, and they'd come flocking to your stall. All your freedom and you chose to hustle the living."

"Better than killing them as you did."

Otariids barked a laugh. "Oh you have no moral high ground. Not after what you've done."

The strike from her flipper against his throat knocked the air out of him, or at least convinced him that he'd had the air knocked out of him. He drew a habitual breath and found that no matter how much he breathed in, his mind was convinced that he wasn't getting any air.

He sat down on the edge of the fountain and tried to wrestle with his own mind. Despite casting something similar to Roni, it wasn't any easier to break the dream. Maybe talking would help convince him he could breathe. "This is payback isn't it?"

"No one touches my friends."

The thought of Judy with these brutes was another hard thought to swallow. He recalled a question that she'd asked him ages ago. "Does this make you feel better about your sad miserable existence?"

He didn't expect Otariids to burst into loud noisy tears. "No!"

She was crying so hard that her control wavered. Nick sucked in as much fresh air as he could, fixing it in his memory. It hadn't been what he was aiming for, but he wasn't going to complain about the results.

By the time Otariids was taking big noisy gulps of air to get her crying under control, Nick had already regained enough strength to ask over her crying, "Why do you do it then?"

"I'm not like you," she sneered through tears. "I don't hide my darkness to make nice with the living. If I'm going to hurt you, you'll see it coming."

"By rejecting my darkness, I've offended a number of the living, the dead, and the undead for good measure." It wasn't Nick's fault that Mr Big's organisation covered all these categories. "But we're not talking about me, we're talking about you. Why do you do things that hurt you?"

"I already told you, I'm not like you!" She raised her flippers, and Nick blocked access to his throat. But Otariids went for his collar to shake him. "I can't turn off my darkness on a whim. How do you do it? Why do you have the living so fooled? Even the exorcists let you exist!"

"First, hands off. Only my exes have gotten this close. Second, I didn't set out to fool anyone. I can turn away from my vengeance because I know what it is. Do you?"

Otariids still hadn't let go of Nick's collar. "When those had wronged us were still alive, it was easy to understand. But now they're dead and gone. _And the darkness still hasn't gone away._ So tell me, Mr Wilde, why has nothing changed?"

"I'm not a mind reader or a medium. I can't give you advice." He brushed her flippers off. "If there's anything I've learned so far, we all have choices. I can't tell you whether you've made your choice or what your options are. Only you can make your own choices."

Otariids gave a weak laugh, the softest sound he'd heard out of her all this while. "Your exorcist said the same thing. Only I can make my own choices."

"What else did Judy say to you?" Nick demanded.

But Otariids was already stepping away as someone called her name. Nick looked towards the sound of the new voice and saw Roni, only as Otariids saw him - wide-eyed, too curious for his own good, easy grin without the malice Nick associated with him.

Then Otariids made a gesture and Nick found his vision was filled by a pair of green eyes.

He stared at them, wondering why Otariids had chosen to leave him with that image, when Honey said from way too close, "Did you have a good vision?"

Nick fell out of the chair in his scramble to get some distance. "Look, I know I'm good looking, but could I have some personal space here? Also what sort of conspiracy theorist doesn't psychically shield her bunker?"

Honey Badger didn't seem to mind Nick's complaints, turning back to the printer that was churning out sheets of pointy line graphs. "I've nothing against visions, they're honest! Besides, it's the way of the badger to let the enemy chomp down before we turn around and take a bite out of you." Honey held two sheets of the print outs against the light. "So I guess the sea lion wasn't a friend."

"No."

"Want me to send her some bad vibes with one of my gadgets?"

" _No._ " Nick crossed his arms. "Just tell me what results you have. Please."

"It's _a_ result, only just a glimpse of THE TRUTH. One thing's for sure, it's not coolant!"

"I suppose that would be too simple for our overlords."

"It's not the Nighthowler serum that Bellwether used."

"So we don't have to worry about the collars causing dark spirits." Apparently Otariids and friends had made their choice. It wasn't physical interference keeping them dark.

"Pay attention Wilde! I just said that it wasn't Bellwether's Nighthowler serum. But there's still a good amount of something from the Datura genus in what you got from the collar. It's still possible that would be enough to trigger dark spirits."

"I thought only Nighthowlers caused dark spirits."

"THAT'S WHAT THE GRAZERS WANT YOU TO THINK. Nighthowlers, the whole Datura series, they're not bad! They're also great at shifting you off this plane to appreciate a whole 'nother one."

"It makes you high?"

"Visions! Of the truth!"

"- not that different really."

"They don't have the good stuff in this mix. Based on the proportion of Datura, seems like they meant to use this for sedation."

"A taming collar that actually tames. If the predator was sedated - "

"No attacks, no excitement, no fun!"

"Those in power would get the docile predator population they always wanted."

"Except they didn't get their docile predators. They got the Original 10. Serves them fucking right. Don't dabble in Datura if you can't deal!"

"Does that mean the Original 10 became dark because of this mixture?"

"Can't rule it out when Datura is involved! Besides, it's fishy they yanked collars over a few noisy spirits." Honey waved the handouts, smirking. "I think this got out of their control and they panicked."

"It wouldn't hurt to test that theory," Nick allowed. Between Judy's wondering if there was more to the Original 10 going dark and the sudden appearance of Datura, he had to admit some curiosity. "Do you think the Nighthowler antidote would work on a spirit that was hit with this mixture?"

"Excuse me, are you trying to get the Badgers to do shoddy science? If there's one thing my sister and I agree on, it's that we don't do shoddy science. My sister tailored her antidote to Bellwether's Nighthowler serum. We haven't done enough tests to even fully identify what kind of Datura this is, much less guess whether the antidote could fix the spirits! You want an antidote, WAIT FOR IT."

"I don't have enough time. I have to get everything done... in 48 hours." Nick grimaced at the time frame that he was starting to hate. "Think of it as testing a hypothesis. If I rule the Nighthowler antidote out, that's one less variable to wonder about."

Honey let out a prolonged groan. "Ugh I HATE deadlines. Why'd you have to do this to me?" She jabbed a long badger claw in Nick's face. "Only this once Guardian Wilde. Next time, we do a full analysis and a proper antidote."

"Lead the way, enlightened one."

 

By the time Nick had almost everything ready, the sun was rising on the second of the three day buffer he had. Even this early, the heat was making itself known in the shifting sands beneath Nick's feet. Further off, Golden Palm Hotel shimmered among the sun and sand like an oasis.

The radio in Nick's pocket crackled to life. "You there yet Nick?" Clawhauser asked.

Nick thumbed the radio. "Just about."

"I would like to state for the record that you should report back here. The Chief has noticed your absence. Both your absences."

"Missing mammal reports are only filed after 24 hours. If Judy isn't here, it won't be too late. Besides Wolford would have a field day if he found out I lost my exorcist."

"Ted wouldn't."

"That's Ted Wolford, friend of Clawhauser, not Ted Wolford, pain in Nick Wilde's butt. Just a few more minutes Claw. Nick out." Nick tucked the radio back in his breast pocket, and asked the messenger mouse on his shoulder. "You hanging in there?"

Jaq snapped aviator goggles over his eyes and took hold of Nick's collar again. "I'm good. Onwards ho!"

"I refuse to neigh," said Nick as he stepped back on the ley.

The ZED's radios were just about the limit of a spirit's carrying capacity of mass while on the ley, which was why Nick had a messenger mouse tucked into his collar, just in case he lost the radio during his trip. They came to a stop at Golden Palm Hotel just as the radio made another attempt at escape from Nick's pocket. Nick fumbled his catch a few times before he got a good grip on the radio.

Jaq stuck his head out from where Nick's collar was folded over. "So many auras! Auras auras auras, even yours Nick! But I don't feel Judy Judy's aura."

"Not right here." Nick avoided looking at the fountain as he made his way to the entrance. Even though Otariids' dream had given him the hint that Judy might be here, his throat felt sore every time he recalled the fountain. He let himself be caught up in the turn of the revolving door to the cool of the hotel lobby.

It seemed the hotel was making up for all the barren sand outside by squeezing every known plant in the hotel lobby itself. The largest was a baobab with lights dangling off its branches and water streaming between its roots. In front of that, marble had been carved into a front desk formed by cascades of graceful curves that acted as ramps for animals of different heights.

Jaq slid down Nick's tie before swinging on the end like a pendulum. When he'd built up enough momentum, he swung himself up into one of the plants. The fronds of the palm tree he'd flung himself into rustled briefly before the rustling moved from one plant to another as Jaq explored.

By the time Nick had veered around the front desk, Jaq plopped back down on Nick's shoulder and did a neat slide down Nick's arm to stop on his palm. "Zug-zug. Asked around and found that the spirits living here have been avoiding the top floor. There's some nasty spirits there. One of them's a big cat. Pah cats."

"Great work Jaq. You don't have to come up. There might be arrays dangerous to you."

"The arrays won't even know I was here I already figured out every single crack." Jaq puffed out his chest with his boast. "I'm not afraid of cats too! I've fooled lots and lots and lots of cats."

"Is that so? Lead the way then." Nick gave Jaq a boost up with a flick of his paw, then floated after him.

Hotels had not quite figured out how to deal with the spirit segment of the market. Spirits usually went where they wanted, and didn't have any currency to speak of. The cheaper hotels went on an honour based system, but fancy hotels like the Golden Palm could afford mediums and exorcists to set up enough warded arrays to make an uninvited guest feel uncomfortable. In the ceiling that Jaq and Nick were approaching, one such array was spread net-like overhead.

If Nick had been alone, he would have to unravel the array. Mice, however, had a way of working with existing gaps, or making new ones. Jaq veered to the left suddenly, and even though Nick had doubts that the hole Jaq was venturing through was fox sized, he followed.

He passed through without losing fur, experiencing any discomfort or even dropping the radio he'd brought. Nick flashed Jaq a thumbs up that Jaq returned with enthusiasm.

With Jaq leading the way the two of them made it up to the top floor without disturbing anyone. Jaq paused atop some wires that all seemed to be leading to the same place, whiskers quivering. "Cat here! Lynxington?"

"I need a peep hole. Think you can rustle one up for me?"

"Not just one! I can find ten and you can choose the best of them all!"

"Knock yourself out."

Jaq scurried up and down wires, tapping bits of wall as his mutterings picked up cadence and speed. Finally Jaq declared. "You can look here and here and here - " This went on for a while before Jaq capped it off by saying.”- and if you want to see cat, here!"

"Let's see what Lynxington is up to." Nick crouched down as Jaq popped off the loose bit of wall to reveal a convenient peep hole.

At the first glance Nick found himself overwhelmed by too many details. The penthouse suite was as lush with plants as the lobby, but where the lobby had accents in marble the suite had gone for rich Moroccan furnishings. Sofas and armchairs invited the guest to sink into them. Nick's peephole from the bath area that thankfully no one was using gave him a good view of the elaborate mosaic at the bottom of the largest bath - comfy for an elephant, practically a pool for a fox like Nick.

Nick let out a soft whistle. "That's fancy. Too bad the air freshener isn't too my liking."

"The spirits here say the room always smells like this just before Mayor Swinton's death anniversary. No living mammal is allowed to stay here during this month."

"That explains why Lynxington wasn't thrown out. No one wants to challenge a murderer at the scene of the crime." With the reminder of the threat posed by the three rogue spirits, Nick renewed his survey of the hotel room for signs of Lynxington.

He finally found Lynxington sprawled on the sofa. With the impressive number of throw cushions Lynxington had commandeered, his ear tufts were the most visible of him. Otariids didn't seem to mind, content to flop on the sofa alone as if she were sunning on a rock at the beach. Both of them were staring transfixed at the TV show they'd tuned to.

Not what Nick expected of murderers. Then again, murderers were not expected of the university aged students that Lynxington and friends had started out as. Just because they were showing their emotional maturity did not mean Nick could go easy on them.

He shifted his attention to search for Judy, but had to give up when he found himself looking at the same palm for the third time. "Is there a place with a better view of Judy?"

"Of course! Follow me. Come come come come." Jaq went skipping over wires and dodging pipes. Nick went at a more cautious pace to avoid alerting Lynxington by banging on things, and to keep Jaq in the lead despite his tinier footsteps.

They rounded to the other end of the room, covering half the floor in the process. That explained why Nick hadn't been able to spot Judy at first - the room was too large. Jaq now directed Nick to another section of the wall where Jaq popped out another loose bit of wall to create another peep hole. The mouse presented the peep hole with such flourish Nick almost expected him to declare "ta da!"

Nick wasn't feeling as enthusiastic. He wasn't sure what state Judy was in. He trusted Judy to take care of herself, sure, but his brief interactions with Lynxington and friends made him worry that the task would be far from easy. So he crept towards the peep hole, bracing himself for the worst.

At first he didn't spot Judy, seeing that his field of vision was dominated by the oversized circular bed. But a glimmer of wards worked between the posts caught his attention. He squinted to pick out more details. It seemed all sorts of documents had been strewn on the bed, probably starting as neat piles until someone had dived for something in her excitement. In a nutshell, Judy's style of working.

He paid more attention as he looked around. The room had been scaled for elephants, so someone had put a footstool that could be converted to a desk by the bed. Seated at this desk with her back to Nick, Judy was pouring over more documents.

Her ears were perked, which was always a good sign. Her array of wards seemed healthy too, which meant the exorcist that had cast it was likely fine as well.

Nick still had to be absolutely sure.

Gesturing to Jaq for complete stillness, Nick let his aura broaden and steal towards Judy's direction. It was slow going - too much direction and Lynxington might pick up on the direction. Too little and it might be too dispersed by the time it reached Judy.

Finally the edge of Nick's aura brushed Judy's. Her ear flicked once, as if she'd felt a fly but was too distracted to swat it aside. He let his aura flow over her shoulders like the most sheer of stoles.

The gentle touch still made Judy bolt upright. He could imagine how her nose must be twitching now as she tried to figure out who he was. He kept perfectly steady to let her figure it out.

Then she leaned into his aura, her own radiating her content.

"Exorcist?" Lynxington's sudden question was sharp above the sound of the TV.

"Found something useful for tomorrow," Judy called out to him as she wrapped Nick's aura in hers so it would not be as obvious. "Sorry for interrupting!"

With his aura flush against Judy's Nick could feel how high strung even her aura was. Bit by bit, she relaxed when Lynxington didn't respond.

It still highlighted that Nick was putting Judy in danger by being here. He started to reel his aura back, but Judy shifted her loose hold on his aura. Nick froze.

Judy got up and pretended to stretch as she looked around for Nick. Nick drew in his aura a little when she was looking in the right direction, and winked, exaggerated and slow, when she finally met his gaze.

The slow spreading smile Judy responded with reminded Nick of the sunrise he'd seen just this morning on the way to Golden Palm Hotel. Even though Judy couldn't see it, Nick smiled back.

She read the emotion in his aura anyway. She brushed against it briefly again before diving for blank paper and scribbling away. Nick left her to it, drawing back his aura so he could make a quick getaway once she'd passed him the message.

Stabbing in her last full stop, she folded the note and lobbed it in a high arc - to thud on the carpet just beyond Nick's reach.

Nick conveyed as much annoyance as he could through a peep hole that cut the force of his glare in half. Judy buried her blush of mortification in her paws.

"Jaq," he whispered up to the messenger mouse sniffing about the wires. "Star student Judy Hopps had just proved how terrible she is at passing notes in class. You think you could make a run?"

Jaq popped out another bit of wall for his own peep hole. "I spy note! I spy far away cat. We don't care about cat. I spy nearby raccoon." Jaq shivered.

Nick wasn't sure if raccoons ate mice and where Roni was but he preferred to take Jaq's word for it. "So it's a bust."

Jaq plucked out three wires, tangled them in a messy braid and slapped the mess into Nick's hand. "Pull this only if they notice me," he instructed, and wriggled out of the peep hole he had only been using to spy moments earlier.

From his angle, Nick had no way of seeing Jaq's progress down the wall. With Jaq's effort to minimise any hints of vibrations, Nick had to endure a nerve-wracking wait before Jaq crossed his field of vision again. He settled for watching Judy, who was pretending to be busy with research again. The occasional flick of her ears indicated that she was following Jaq's progress. So long as she didn't jump into action, Jaq ought to be fine.

Sure enough Jaq tumbled out of a cluster of plants with a leaf held over his head. He compared the leaf to the carpet's design, gave up and chucked it away. He started to scurry across the open floor.

"Hey exorcist!" said Roni. "Have some fruits!"

A plum was tossed from a nearby fruit basket to ding against Judy's wards. Nick refocused on the fruit basket. Dwarfed by the riot of fruits and the fruit basket he'd tucked himself into highlighted how much more transparent Roni was from the last time Nick had seen him. Apparently Nick's attack had sapped some of his power. Nick had to settle being satisfied with just that, even when Judy bristled at the disruption. "I told you I'm not interested."

"Why are you working so hard? You're going to put lines on your face and I won't be able to use it for anything."

Nick was tempted to tug the wires just then, but he didn't know what risk it would put Jaq in. He checked on the messenger mouse - Jaq had made it to the note, and just needed time to figure out the best angle for moving the folded paper.

Judy seemed determined to give Jaq the time he needed. She stepped briefly out of the cover of her wards to scoop up the plum. "All the more reason to keep working," she shot back. The plum followed next, arcing in an easy to follow curve that Roni stopped when he snatched the plum out of the air.

He scowled at the plum. "You act as if you have nothing to hide. Stop making me guess! What are you keeping hidden from me?"

"I'm an exorcist in enemy territory. I have everything to hide." She stepped behind her wards and slammed them shut again.

Just in time for a mouse under the cover of a piece of paper to make it back to the foliage. In much shorter time than it had taken for Jaq to clamber down, a piece of paper was poked into the peep hole Jaq had left from. Nick tugged it through, along with the mouse clinging to the other end of it.

"Go go go!" Jaq squeaked, dashing along wires as soon as his feet touched them.

Nick didn't need extra prompting to drop the wires Jaq had handed him and hurry after the mouse spirit. He was less certain when he popped his head through the hole Jaq had made a beeline for and found it led to the outside of the hotel and a long way down. "Jaq, there's a worrying lack of stairs here."

Jaq snapped his goggles over his eyes. "Are we spirits or are we spirits?" He shook out Judy's note, and with a whoop proceeded to use that as a make shift parachute.

Jaq had a point. Besides it was the first time Nick had a chance to go fully ghostly in a while.

He tossed the radio upwards then went to full spirit form. Without any mass, it was a pleasant drift to the ground. Nick had enough time to land safely and shift to being solid enough to catch the radio on its way down.

Jaq, having landed earlier, had spread out the note that Judy had scribbled. "Look! The exact details of a ritual they're planning at City Hall tomorrow!"

Nick glanced at it, paying special attention to the time. "We'll be able to prepare."

"Gotta get this to Benji," Jaq agreed, refolding the note to something he could manage.

Nick thumbed on the radio. "Claw? Nick here. We found Judy. Jaq's heading over with a message from her."

"Great! Are you still going ahead or coming back to HQ?"

"I'll wait here for my gear." Nick looked up at the hotel penthouse where he knew Judy was. "I have a castle to storm."


	10. I put a spell on you

The doorman gave the backfiring van the blackest look, but Nick couldn't dwell on that for long because Finnick chucked the radio at his head once the van rolled to a stop. Nick was awake enough to catch it this time.

"The things I do for your stupid ass Wilde."

"What, drive a van? I thought you've been doing that all along."

"The next time you have the chatty cheetah as your go between, tell me so I can smash the fucking radio."

"Hello? Are you listening to me?" Clawhauser's voice crackled from the radio. "Gazelle is MORE THAN JUST HER HIPS."

Nick turned the volume down on the radio so Clawhauser's continued litany of Gazelle's many virtues were just tinny noises. "Never get between Clawhauser and his adoration of Gazelle."

"I didn't say nothing. I just said that her hips were amazing. She has a whole song about it."

"I wonder how he feels about that. Probably the same way you do when someone calls Iztaccíhuatl a pin up girl."

"Fuck you too Wilde. You want your bag or not?"

Nick held out his paw for it. Instead of handing Nick the bag, Finnick held out Judy's sword first in one paw.

"Thought the exorcist might like to have this first," he said, as if it wasn't a big deal that he'd not only done inventory but considered what worked best. "How's your rabbit?"

With Finnick, Nick could admit to a bit of his doubt. "Could be better," he admitted as he buckled on the sword.

"Then get to making it better instead of bitching to me about it." Finnick lobbed the duffel at Nick.

Nick caught it before it hit his midsection. "I feel so loved right now."

"Don't get used to it. Good hunting." With another bang that made nearby mammals stare, Finnick kicked the van back into motion and drove off.

It was Nick's turn to leave. Compared to his earlier survey of the hotel, he'd made sure that nothing - thresholds, arrays, wards, keycards, whatever else he could think of - would be in his way given that he couldn't go ghostly now with all his gear. He took the elevator to the top floor, barely noticing the landscape broaden the higher he got since most of his attention was on projecting his aura.

By the time he reached the top floor he was certain that Lynxington and friends knew he was coming. Judy at least would have read his aura loud and clear with her aura sensitivity. It was with this confidence that he stepped out of the lift, calling out as he did, "Room service!"

He nearly walked into Lynxington, who had planted himself in front of the lift door. Nick made sure Lynxington noticed when Nick only spared him a glance before deliberately looking around him to the rest of the room. Nick was glad he did the recce earlier - it let him spot Roni, the glint of his eyes only just visible over the edge of the fruit basket he was still in. Otariids was more obvious, given how she was flanking Judy. Judy herself was on her feet, but still within the circle of her wards.

When Nick returned to Lynxington, he made sure to smirk. "So I heard it's your death anniversary."

"You're off by two days."

"A day. See, I read your files at the ZED and I happen to know the dates extremely well."

"What do you want fox?"

Nick brushed past Lynxington to head towards the ridiculously huge sofa he had seen Lynxington and Otariids sprawled on earlier.

"I was thinking that the three of you are woefully under-prepared, whether for a celebration or a re-enactment. So I thought I'd bring you some supplies." Nick emptied out his duffel bag on the sofa, not caring if things bounced and clattered. "I brought balloons animals, placards with protest slogans, and not forgetting some extremely vintage accessories." He held up a collar with a smairk.

"How dare you!" Otariids hollered. "It's a disgusting practice and no one should ever be subject to it again!"

"I completely agree with you. I used to wear a collar. This one in particular in fact." Nick spun the collar with a finger before tossing it and catching it. He picked up one of the placards with his other paw. "However, these placards, the things on them that you were protesting about? They have no meaning without collars. Leave collars out, and your re-enactment of the riot will be an empty shell of what it was." He tossed the both of them down. "But sure. Leave these details out. Why do I care if your re-enactment works?"

"Yeah, we'll do fine without your suggestions. Tell me I'm right Lyndon!"

Lynxington had his arms folded in thoughtful contemplation. "Exorcist? Is he right about the collars?"

"Yes," said Judy without hesitation, even though Nick hadn't shared with her his purpose in having the collars.

Otariids blew a raspberry. "They have to be lying."

Nick grinned wide enough to show teeth. "What happens if we're right? Oh no try again tomorrow? Only tomorrow won't be your death anniversary, seeing an anniversary only comes around every year."

"You won't be right!"

"Are you into gambling ma'am?" Nick asked with his most innocent tone. "Because that sounds awfully like you're playing the odds."

"How could you trust me in planning the array for the re-enactment, but not trust me in this?" Judy let the research spread out behind her speak for itself.

As Otariids spluttered for an answer, Lynxington said to Nick. "The exorcist has a stake in seeing this succeed, but you don't. If you're sincere about helping, join us. We'll include the collars if you join us to re-create the riot."

"When I wasn't even there?" Nick pretended to mull it over even as he picked out the other three collars he had brought. "I was planning on sticking around anyway. Now if you'd let me divide up the goods -"

"That means you'll have to wear the collar too."

"Must I?" Even though Nick had prepared for the possibility, he wasn't going to agree straight off. The trick was to let the other party stew and think they had more to lose. "I don't even have your word you'll be wearing the collars. I wouldn't want to be the odd one out."

"You have my word we'll wear the collars if you do."

"Lyndon!" Otariids protested. "I don't agree!"

"Hey you appointed him the leader of the group, his word is as good as yours." Nick wasn't going to let his agreement just slip away.

"I may have agreed but there's still a matter of details. Since my friends think the price is too steep, on their behalf I'll make a request. Have the exorcist put your collar on."

"That's cruel and unusual punishment and not my call to make. Who puts my collar on doesn't affect the re-enactment and you know it."

"I'll do it," said Judy, even though her displeasure was clear in the way she glared at Lynxington. "I'm disappointed in you but I'll do it."

Nick focused the force of his glare on Otariids until she looked away. Before anyone else could object, Nick crossed the room with the collars.

He handed the collar to Roni first, seeing how he hadn't spoken throughout the entire exchange. Roni popped out a paw to take the collar and dragged it back into the cover of his fruit basket just as quick. Lynxington took the the collar without even a twitch of his ears. Otariids, hovering between shame and anger, snatched the collar from Nick even before he extended it to her.

That left Nick and Judy.

Nick gave her a smile he wasn't feeling as he looped the collar around his neck with the clasp open in front. "Just think of it as helping me with my tie."

"I still haven't figured out why you aren't able to tie them properly." Judy tugged on Nick's tie, ignoring the collar for now. "You're a tailor's son."

"I know exactly how to tie a tie Fluff. I just don't tie them as ridiculously tight as you do." He let go of the ends of the collar when Judy reached out for them, choosing to rest his paws on the back of hers.

"What's the point of wearing a tie if you refuse to wear it properly?" Judy tugged the ends of the collar together but there was no whine that indicated the collar had been reactivated. She was hesitating over the tiniest of gaps between the ends.

"I'm making the barest of concessions to formality. And there are enough tight things around my neck."

When Judy looked up in surprise, he winked at her and pressed the back of her paws to click the collar shut.

The collar snapped shut with its tell tale whine and a brief sharp stab. So the injection mechanism for the Nighthowler antidote was working - Honey had set it up to be triggered when the collar was properly secured. Nick and Honey had agreed to install it in Nick's collar too, just in case the Original 10 had secret engineers too.

That was why Nick paid special attention when Lynxington put his on. He flinched at the jab as Nick had.

Nick waited one beat. Two. Anytime now.

"I wish we didn't have to!" Otariids protested.

Roni poked his head out of the fruit basket. He'd long put on the collar without any fanfare. His aura was still just as dark even after the antidote. "It can't hurt you anymore. It's not as if you have a heartbeat."

"It can too still hurt!"

Judy snagged Nick's wrist. The abrupt action drew Lynxington's attention. "Where do you think you're going Exorcist?"

"I have a lot of research to do and no time to waste on arguments. Guardian Wilde, I need your views on something please." She extended her aura around him and tugged Nick right through her wards.

If Lynxington had said something, it wouldn't have gotten through the wards. Even the sickly thick perfume that had been a parting gift from Mayor Swinton upon her death had been blocked out. "You've been very busy Exorcist Hopps."

"These kids don't know anything about reconstructions."

"Kids? Is someone getting attached?"

"You'll see if you talked to them. The ZED was too quick to lock them away. They're angry, but they're capable of higher thought and reasoning. If I had the chance to talk to them more -"

"I talked to Otariids for 10 minutes, half of which she spent choking me." Nick shook off the memory of the dream, though it had the unintended effect of causing Judy to release his wrist.

"They'd probably have nothing good to say about us either. We've only met them in fights!" Judy was already drumming a foot, a remaining emotional outlet left to her since she seemed to be trying not to shout.

"Well you had one and a half days of not fighting. Did you get to tell Lynxington about your grand plan for his redemption?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact we talked about it. He still remembers his family, and he wants to go back to them - "

"There's a but somewhere in there, isn't there?"

Judy's ears dropped. "He wants to complete the reconstruction first."

"Figures. Naive kid starts with oh I have to do this really important thing first, I'll get back to my folks later, only the next important thing comes along, maybe there's something else too shiny to pass up, or even a whole project, and when the idea next crosses his mind again his family's up and gone. Except Lynxington's idea of a project is re-enacting bloody riots." Nick sighed, then reached for the last thing he was still carrying. "So Lynxington has his and our hopes riding on this re-enactment. Sounds like you need this back." He unbuckled Judy's sword and presented it to Judy in both hands.

She laid her hands atop the sword but was focused on Nick instead of the sword. "I'm glad you're here too."

"I'm your guardian, Hopps. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

She leaned in, tiptoed to press her head against the bottom of his jaw but didn't linger. "They might not be able to hear us, but they can still see. And they've already used me against you once." Her eyes dropped to his shock collar.

Nick resisted the urge to tug her close and tell her it wasn't her fault. "We'll just pretend that we're at ZED HQ. Which you're well on the way of turning this place into." He let her have her sword and plucked out a sheet at random. "Did you miss writing reports that much?"

"They have access to materials I don't, and this isn't an easy array to plan." Judy buckled on her sword before joining Nick.

"What's the hold up?"

Judy fanned out one of the piles with lines and circles scribbled all over. "There's too few of us. The numbers look better with you involved, but the array is going to be shaky."

"What do you need?"

"The minimum? 4 standing in as students, 2 as ZPD. The best would be 6 students, 3 ZPD. I can't form a circle on my own."

"The ZED will be there."

"I know. I warned Lynxington and the others the date of their death is not secret. Bogo will want to nab them then."

"And thanks to your note we'll have the proper resources. Hopps, I-"

Judy touched a finger to his mouth. "They're done arguing."

Otariids was indeed wearing her collar and a sullen expression. She kicked at the carpet as she made her way to the sofa to drop right on top of the balloon animals without moving them off the sofa. Roni sank back into his fruit basket.

Lynxington looked over at them, then to Nick and Judy through the veil of Judy's wards. Nick stepped closer to Judy, placing one protective paw on her shoulder.

Lynxington turned away from all of them and went to the piano. Soon music filled the air; Nick couldn't hear the song but it shivered against Judy's wards.

"Is that safe?" Nick wondered, as the array began to vibrate around them.

"He hasn't actually broken through my wards. I don't think that's his intention."

As if summoned by the music, Roni hopped out from his fruit basket, sliding down a nearby banister to do a flip to the ground. He padded over to the piano and swung himself up to flop on his stomach on the closed lid. He leaned over and poked at the keys without actually playing any notes, deftly avoiding Lynxington's moving hands.

Eventually Otariids came over. She settled on the piano chair, leaning her chin on Lynxington's shoulder. Lynxington played on, though he seemed to have relaxed against Otariids.

Nick pretended that Judy wasn't directing a pointed look at him. The collar they'd made her put on him still sat uneasily around his throat.

 

By noon, the collar had gotten heavy. Nick had been holding himself more solid than usual the last few days due to the physical items he had to carry, and keeping the collar in place was adding more strain.

The other three spirits seemed to be faring just as badly. Nick had long trained himself to stay active over noon, given that pawpsicles sold best under a hot sun. Otariids and Roni had given up, dozing on the card game they'd started. Lynxington seemed to be looking for something, only to keep getting distracted from his task.

"Is there something wrong with them? Aside from the obvious." Nick asked Judy.

"They haven't been back to their graves for 50 years. At first they were sealed, now they've had no chance with ZED staking out their graves."

Nick couldn't imagine not being able to return to his grave after making it out from a place like Cliffside. "So that explains why we hadn't seen much of them."

"We hadn't considered the hotel as a possible hiding place due to the number of wards," Judy admitted. She left the cover of her own wards.

Even if Lynxington was at half, maybe even quarter strength, Nick didn't want to leave things to chance. He followed Judy out of the wards, past the exit to the balcony and the round table Otariids and Roni were slumped on to the little kitchenette area between that and the piano. Lynxington was staring blankly at a bag of potato chips he'd pulled from the box of food.

"It's ok, I'll rather have salad for lunch." Judy opened up the fridge and helped herself to a box.

"Are you sure you don't want anything else?"

"I'm fine." She left the salad to warm on the counter before turning Lynxington about by his shoulders and giving him a light push towards the sofa. "You should rest."

"Are you sure?"

"There's nobody here to impress," Nick shot back.

Lynxington glared at Nick, but merely stood there swaying until Judy gave him another light shove. Then he headed towards the sofa and curled up on it. Judy checked in on Otariids and Roni before turning to Nick.

"Is the widdle bunny going to tuck me in too? I'll have you know I'm a grown fox that sets his own bedtimes." Nick let himself be dragged out to the balcony. "The bright sunlight here is counter-productive to sleep - oof!"

Judy had launched herself at him. It was good that he had gone solid enough to take the weight, but bad that he had to stumble a little before he found a convenient deck chair to drop into.

Judy had a death grip on his shock collar. "Please tell me you have some way of getting this off."

Wordlessly Nick tugged Honey's scanner out of his pocket and handed it to Judy. She held it to the collar until it beeped open, then flung the collar away as far as she could.

"Whoa, we still need that. And Carrots, you do realise we are on an open balcony?"

"Shut up," said Judy, slightly muffled from where her face was pressed up against his now bared neck. "Don't pretend you weren't worried either, Mr 'Never let them see that they get to you' Wilde."

He gave up and held Judy back just as tightly as she was clinging on to him.

"I hope there's more to the collars than making me worry," she said, when she'd relaxed her grip. She'd shifted such that her cheek was against his neck and her head was tucked up under his chin.

"We'd found a Datura based sedative in the collars. I thought of trying the Nighthowler antidote but - " He gestured with a hand, realised she couldn't see and let it drop.

"I knew you'd figure it out. I'm sorry we didn't have more time."

"What about you? You didn't go off with Lynxington to scare me out of my wits did you? Surely Exorcist Hopps has found a way to keep him from re-enacting the moment of your death right down to the last detail."

She sat up to tug the lucky charm Nick had handed her immediately after Cliffside out of her pocket, though the pouch looked the worse for wear. She pulled the top open again. "I found sloth mould in this," she said as she held it open for Nick to peer in. Sure enough the telltale green had been literally sprinkled throughout. "I started incorporating some of it into my clothes." She flipped her shirt collar up. Against the noon sun Nick could see a splotch of black where Judy had sewn in the ingredient.

"It'll slow any attack." He tugged the bag shut and added his aura as he always did for Flash. "I think the charm should be good without the mould too. Is that it?"

"I convinced Lynxington to spar with me. I know how he fights. I can take him."

"Hopps, it's not just the spirit you're fighting. You're dealing with two lifetimes worth of karma."

"That isn't up to me. You've seen it at the Little Rodentia reconstruction. Karma, aura memory, the only way to break away is if we choose to act differently. I know I would, and this is my chance to break the cycle. But I can't right this wrong on my own. I- I need to believe that there's still good in Lynxington, that there's a chance he'll do the right thing. He _has_ to."

Nick finally understood, though he liked the picture no better than before. He took in Judy's expression, as fierce and as bright as the noon sun that was beating down on them. "I don't know much about karma, and I don't care much for the past. But I do know there's a fox who's trying very hard not to let your hopes down."

Judy grinned down at him. "I know you'd always choose right, dumb fox."

"Dumb bunny. Always trying to make the world a better place."

"Someone has to."

"Careful, you're going to give Mrs Hopps and Mama Odie headaches." He kept his easy grin - if he was crossing his fingers, Judy didn't have to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter before the going gets tough


	11. Put your loving hand out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening - Beggin. Both the [Frank Valli & the Four Seasons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgmyQFFQjo&gl=SG&hl=en-GB) and the [Madcon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHoOBWbmCUc) version work.

Whatever lethargy that Lynxington and the others had displayed faded once their death anniversary had come around. Buoyed by their boost in energy, it was hard to tell if the three dark spirits were affected by returning to the scene of their death, even in the bright afternoon sun. Nick had long given up on trying to figure them out, especially with the distracting chafe of his collar back around his neck. Instead, he was sticking close to Judy.

But Judy wasn't quite the Judy he'd spoken to yesterday or followed over water without question. From the moment she'd pinned the police badge of Officer Hopps on her chest, it had become a sticking point he couldn't quite get over. This wasn't the Judy who'd invited him over thresholds, even that of her family's land. She felt like the marks of her past lives under his paw, heading for a convergence he wasn't sure he could follow her into.

He was still going to try. He hadn't made it back to her to lose her again.

If any of these thoughts were passing through Judy's head, she didn't show it. The laser focus of Exorcist Hopps was on surveying City Hall, making sure that she could carry out her plan. They'd chosen the quieter courtyard in front of another office building, away from the fountain where mammals lounged and played, away the nearby square with its throng and street vendors. From where they were standing, the dual towers of City Hall rose above its busy green lawn in a more subtle symbol of predator and prey unity than the old Hoof and Paw.

"Does it meet your expectations, Exorcist?" Lynxington seemed to have drawn himself up to his full height, for he appeared to loom over Judy in a way he hadn't before.

"The location is fine." She hadn't shared her concern on the numbers with Lynxington, and she didn't seem about to start now.

"Can we start already?" Roni was practically vibrating in place. He was a stark contrast to Otariids, who seemed to be lulled by the susurrus of the fountain's spray. Nick noted the water would be a source of strength for her, and tucked away that detail in case he needed to use it later. Especially since it seemed that Judy wasn't paying attention, her ear tilted towards the building behind them.

There was the click of a hoof against tile. Nick turned in the same direction as Judy and saw Chief Bogo making his way down the stairs of the building behind them. He had his hands clasped behind his back in a casual pose, but the sword on his back and the sharp look he gave Nick as he passed belied that.

Bogo saved the full force of his glower for Judy. "Hopps. Do you enjoy dancing on the shreds of my patience? You're never where you're expected to be."

"With all due respect sir, I didn't expect to be here either."

Bogo kept his glare on Judy even when addressing Nick. "Wilde, a chat with Clawhauser does not count as reporting in before chasing after your exorcist, no matter how much useful information that comes about from that chat."

"Would you like an apology?"

"In writing, in triplicate." He'd already moved away from Nick and Judy to loom over Lynxington. Otariids and Roni flanked Lynxington, a stable base of black confronting the Chief. Despite the sharp rasp of their combined aura, Chief Bogo didn't flinch.

"You have two options," he told them. "Come quietly, or the ZED will take you in."

"We're not coming quietly," Lynxington informed Bogo.

That earned a reaction: - crossed arms and the nostril flare that Nick knew from experience preceded a chewing out. Well, in Nick's case at least. He was pretty sure Chief Bogo wouldn't hesitate to draw on Lynxington.

Lynxington kept staring up at Bogo, no quiver in his voice as he added, "But I understand that a spirit is weakest in the hours immediately after re-enacting their death."

This was a line that Judy had fed Lynxington, coached him until the words came naturally. Just because it was true didn't mean Nick had to like it any better.

From the lowering of the Chief's head to point his horns at Lynxington, Bogo didn't like this any better either. "Are you saying the ZED can't take you at full strength?"

"Why haven't you then?" Roni demanded, already hopping from paw to paw. "Did you think you could mask the guardians you've hidden in the area?"

If Roni expected Chief Bogo to be flustered at being called out, he earned the opposite reaction. The Chief smirked. "To invite comparisons to another violent put down at this very place? I think not. Your friend is right. We can afford to wait until the time is right. In the meantime you will be escorted by our guardians -"

"We won't!" Compared to the now approaching guardians, it seemed the trio had drawn their power base too small - their cluster would be easy to encircle. He and Otariids backed away to increase the dead zone between the three of them.

But it wouldn't be a dead zone if the guardians slotted themselves into the array Otariids and Roni were attempting to build. From behind Chief Bogo a pair of wolf spirits streaked after Otariids and Roni to jostle with them for array positions. Nick sidestepped to flank Lynxington instead of Judy.

The last of the Wolford brothers came face to face with Nick. For a moment it looked like Ted Wolford was going to shove his way into the array. Nick kept his position next to Lynxington, even though Nick could feel the prickle of Lynxington’s glare that conveyed his general dislike for the situation.

"If you get my brothers hurt, you'd pay," Wolford settled for snarling.

"Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence," Nick called after the slinking Wolford.

He knew the moment the other Wolford brothers had caught up with Otariids and Roni. Fred and Ned Wolford had worked with Nick so many times that a nudge of their aura was enough to stretch power between himself and the others to form the array.

By Judy's side, Chief Bogo had done the same with a shield stretched between himself, Higgins and Trunkaby, all three standing in as the ZPD. Trunkaby had even donned his ZPD uniform, though the details were muted in his spirit form. From the far end of the courtyard, Trunkaby saluted Judy, and Nick briefly wondered if Trunkaby had known Judy in all his years in the mortal world.

When Nick looked to Judy for confirmation, she gestured the numbers 6 and 3 to him, followed by a thumbs up. She'd gotten the numbers for her array, thanks to Nick and the note she'd handed him.

She instantly sobered when she turned to Lynxington. Nick usually read Lynxington's mood by his words or aura; this time rage had twisted Lynxington's features, had him baring teeth in a snarl at Judy.

"This was a set-up," he spat.

"I told you the ZED would be here."

"You took their side!"

The same sense that led Nick know the array was going well now told him that Lynxington and Judy were falling into the patterns that would lead up to Lynxington's death. It didn't matter that they were arguing about different things now; for aura memory to kick in, only the pattern had to match.

"She didn't have to come over to your side at any time, Pointy Ears. If you are having any second thoughts about re-living your death, now's the time to back off."

"You were always outnumbered," Chief Bogo rumbled. "Let it go."

"You still have a choice." Judy's voice carried the furthest, pitched for even Otariids and Roni to hear as they faced down the Wolfords. "All of you. You still have a choice."

Aura memory teetered on this moment. Judy was deviating from the script, but was it enough to rewrite the play?

The fountain rising to a roar was the first sign that something had changed, followed by an accompanying flare in Otariids' aura as she pulled strength from the water. Even Lynxington turned away from his confrontation with Judy to see what had caused the shift.

Otariids' aura was bleeding tendrils of black that were dissipating into the air. Even though her aura was still dark, it was somehow less stomach churning to look at. She had pulled away from her confrontation with Ned Wolfson to turn imploring eyes on Lynxington. Nick had seen that look once before in a dream, when she'd softly laughed at the idea of having a choice over her darkness and had drawn away from him. 

She did the same now, only to Lynxington. "I'm sorry Lyndon. _I can't._ "

Roni growled low in his throat before bursting out, "She can't do that! Can she?"

Otariids was no longer listening, even for Lynxington’s reply. She had tucked in her aura and withdrew from the array.

Stretched between Lynxington and Roni, the array formed by their auras had turned into a taut line. Roni scrambled to hold fast to the power. Lynxington had no such qualms. He dragged one claw tip along the link between Roni and himself, and then plucked it at the exact frequency to make it snap.

The backlash of power sent Roni and any one who hadn't planted themselves crashing into the protective shield maintained by Bogo, Higgins and Trunkaby. Nick's connection to the Wolfords dimmed as Fred had been closest to Roni. Nick and Judy only kept their positions because Lynxington had somehow taken the brunt of the backlash into himself. The shield creaked, but it held.

Lynxington's eyes burned gold in the roiling miasma that was his aura. "Now you've turned even my friends on me? I want out, Exorcist."

"All I did was offer Otariids the same choice I'm offering you," said Judy, the apology in her voice not diminishing its steel in any way.

The reasons for Lynxington's anger at Judy differed now, but the heights of his anger matched that of the aura memory. Nick could only watch as aura memory snapped over both Lynxington and Judy. In this memory, he was just another nameless predator in the crowd, a witness to the confrontation between Lynxington and Officer Hopps.

The first thing the aura memory did was to set off Lynxington’s collar.

It should not have been possible without a heartbeat, but Nick's accidental assistance in handing Lynxington his own collar had created enough of a resonance for the aura memory to go on. Even as a spirit, the electricity crackled in what looked like a painful arc over Lynxington's form.

It was enough for both Exorcist and Officer Hopps to jump into action. Their layered auras, one compelled by memory, the other by the urge to see this through, made them both draw the scanner that Nick had left with Judy.

A press of the scanner and both the collar and Lynxington fell to the ground, dormant. Judy, in her role as Officer Hopps, started chest compressions.

"Wilde." The Chief couldn't growl like a predator could but his rumble was a close approximation. "What did you not tell me?"

Nick threw an arm out before the Chief could step in. "Nothing that can be explained now." Nick kept an eagle eye on Lynxington and Judy, waiting for the sliver of opportunity that he thought he might have.

Lynxington's eyes flew open, and his aura had sharpened to a killing intent.

The claim on Judy's life that Nick hadn't wanted gave Nick the brief opportunity to defend what was his. He dove for it and Judy, his leap sending him flying into her as he grabbed her around the waist.

The force of his pounce brought them away from Lynxington. Nick tucked himself around Judy and they rolled into a landing that left them both winded. Beneath Nick's protective crouch, Judy gasped as Chief Bogo used the opening to stake Lynxington with his sword. "Lynxington's not going to have the chance to redeem himself!"

"The Chief and I seem to agree that Lynxington already had his chance and he blew it."

"Nick!" Purple eyes looked up at him, pleading.

Nick felt rather than saw Lynxington make the necessary action that sent aura memory vibrating all around them. Beneath Nick, Judy gasped and shuddered as her eyes shifted to blue. The aura that Nick was more familiar with faded completely from Nick's limited fox senses as Officer Hopps reappeared.

Like aura memory, Nick's dark side didn't care that it was triggered by hate for Lynxington instead of the rabbit he was looming over. The transformation tore through Nick, broke his aura into jagged edges that had Officer Hoppswincing in pain at a mere brush.

"Your murderer can't run from you now," said Lynxington, voice wet with blood from a heart he clearly didn't possess.

"Wilde, remember what I told you about revenge," Bogo cautioned.

"We all have choices," said Officer Hopps. Echoing Judy's line might have been a mistake. The differences in the delivery that Nick knew from close proximity only served to highlight that this was the rabbit that had gotten him killed, with even his darker senses telling him that there was no Judy beneath that. "My choice is to apologise for what I've done. Whatever you decide to do with that apology, I'll respect your decision Wilde."

Her head was tilted back. It would be easy to rip out her throat.

Nick pushed himself up and away from her and those awful thoughts. Instead of waiting for the darkness to fade from his aura he turned it away now. Bits of darkened aura floated down from him like ash.

He sheathed his claws, even though they'd gone so sharp that the action hurt him. "Killing you because you didn't believe I wasn't a murderer seems deeply ironic, Officer." He held out a paw.

Officer Hopps took it and helped herself up. Unlike Nick there was no shifting in her aura, no grand declaration. Her eyes remained blue.

Lynxington allowed himself a laugh as Chief Bogo demanded everyone to quit gawking and snapped out instructions for the three spirits to be taken away. Nick stood to one side, refusing to look at anyone. Right now, only pride was keeping him standing upright and unmoving. Later, perhaps, he could mourn.

Later was definitely not in front of the rabbit, who was still looking at him with her damned blue eyes.

"Wilde."

"I don't know you, lady." As far as Nick was concerned, they had only talked when she had interviewed him for his case file. That was nothing compared to what Judy Hopps, exorcist, had shared with him.

"I didn't say what I said just now to save my skin. I really am sorry. After interviewing you, I had my suspicions about the case."

"But you didn't do a thing."

"I - I had just gotten the system to accept me Wilde. I'd struggled through being a switchboard bunny, slogged through countless roles and patrols to ace the detective exam. I thought that if the system could accept me, it couldn't be that broken. If even a simple rabbit officer knew you were innocent, then the system too would prove your innocence. I made a mistake."

"And a complete hash of things. So why don't you do us both a favour and go away."

"I want to. As far as I'm concerned, I died on this spot 50 years ago. I'm not meant for the world of the living."

"Then why haven't you left?" He wanted to snap out the words, but all his emotions were a giant, unsafe tangle that threatened darkness one way and heartbreak the other.

"I wasn't as trained as your exorcist was, but as a Hopps, I know enough. Every time I've entered or left my present life, it was because someone else had summoned or dismissed me."

"With all these exorcists around, you'd think that someone would have already offered to send you away."

"I think... you have do it."

The laugh that it tore from Nick was an ugly sound that barely qualified. "You really don't know me. I'm a guardian spirit. I know nothing about exorcist or medium work."

"I'm not so sure about that. Simply arresting you has haunted us across lifetimes. But what you haved with my present life, wasn't it more than that? Did you think all those moments meant anything less?"

Perhaps it was due to Nick's origin as a dark spirit, but even hope was a terrible, painful thing as it grew in his chest. "I don't know what to do."

"Try something. Anything."

Officer Hopps was right. Judy deserved any fighting chance Nick could get her. He made himself face her past life in her present body. "First, get this off." He jabbed a finger at his collar.

It should have recalled the moment on the balcony when Judy had taken his collar off. But despite the collar clattering to the floor, Nick had no urge to comfort this Judy.

Perhaps it was the darn badge. His paws fumbled with the pin, but eventually it plinked on the ground alongside Nick's collar. Nick's tails swept them both aside to be forgotten.

"Maybe what you did at Little Rodentia would work?" suggested Officer Hopps.

There Judy had been lurking under her past life. Now, the spark of his aura only set the scars to glowing with no change in aura.

Disappointment had him letting go of his control over his aura, letting it steal over the rabbit's shoulders as it had with Judy back at the hotel. If that had been a stole, this was a shroud as he buried his hopes.

He rested his chin against the top of the rabbit's head so he didn't have to see her eyes and be reminded that this wasn't Judy. "How dare you do this to me," he murmured, at a volume he and Judy had long worked out that only rabbit ears would be able to pick up. "I told you all about collars and you didn't even get me a cup of Reggio joe. And I still haven't given you an answer about my grave. Who will bother me about my grave if you don't? Am I even welcome at Bunnyburrow without you? I know I'd have to leave the ZED, it's the Exorcist Department after all. What a shitty retirement gift you've left me - paperwork and a carrot pen. How dare you Exorcist Hopps. Carrots. _Judy._ "

At the last name the rabbit sighed, leaning into his paw still on her scarred cheek. "You left out the part where I gave you my sword and my life, Nick."

Nick grabbed her shoulders to steady himself and leaned back for a better look. Purple eyes met his, and Judy Hopps gave him a weak smile. "I'm your exorcist, dumb fox, you're not getting rid of me that easily."

"Dumb bunny." She was Judy again, her words and expression and aura providing undeniable proof it was so. "What is it with you and making me worry?"

"Pot, meet Kettle" Judy mumbled as she let her head thunk again his chest, her arms already wrapping around his waist in a tight hug.

"Look who's talking after the stunt you just pulled." Relief washed through Nick and left him feeling woozy and light-headed. "I kind of have to sit down here, Carrots."

"Me too," Judy admitted.

They stumbled back onto a nearby step with Nick's arm around her shoulders and Judy still pressed in tight. They only looked up when Chief Bogo loomed over them.

"Wilde, Hopps, look sharp. The last of the 10 is almost packed up."

"Finally," Nick groaned. Against his side, Judy chuckled.

"Exorcist Hopps."

"Yes sir?"

"Welcome back."

"Happy to be back, sir."

But she was looking at Nick as she said it. Their touching shoulders, their mingled aura - all this assured them that they were still here, still _them_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue left folks. The last chapter should be up same time next week, hopefully along with some goodies!


	12. Stand by me

A few days later, Nick and Judy were sharing company with a Lynxington.

Lysandra Lynxington was in the backseat of the ZED car, but her presence filled the entire space with no effort. Nick was avoiding the rear view mirror - he'd caught sight of the gold eyes the Lynxingtons shared and had found himself on the edge of his seat.

His nervousness was echoed by Judy, but for other reasons. She kept looking in the rear view mirror, some remark or other on her lips, only to shut her mouth and subside into silence again.

After the third time, Lysandra asked, "Is it normal for the ZED to pick up visitors to those in holding?"

"No, Mrs Lynxington." The rote response seemed to have unstuck whatever Judy had meant to say. "I wanted to talk to you."

"It's about Lyndon isn't it? Were - were you the exorcist to bring him down?"

"To your son, I may as well be." She hunched over the steering wheel, ears flattened back. "I'm sorry."

Nick's own ears were pinned back. If the roles had been reversed, Nick wouldn't have apologised. There was nothing Judy needed to apologise for after the stunt Lyndon had pulled at City Hall.

Lysandra, who hadn't been there, asked, "What did you do to my son?"

Nick the guardian wanted to snap that it was more what her son had done to Judy, but Slick Nick knew it wouldn't help the situation. If it made Judy feel better, it wouldn't hurt to let Judy talk things out.

"I wasn't able to convince him that he had a chance to change. He's still a dark spirit. I'm sorry you have to see him this way."

Lysandra didn't snap at them like Lyra had, but she was focused on Judy now, tracking her movements with eyes and ears. "I'm not familiar with exorcist speak. What does being a dark spirit mean? There was all this talk about dark spirits after the Nighthowlers, but it doesn't sound like what you're talking about now. What's this about change?"

Judy glanced at Nick. Ever since the Nighthowler incident, she'd avoided talking about dark spirits to prevent her own biases from creeping in. Nick too had learnt a bit from Honey Badger, and was still learning.

He attempted to explain what he knew to Lysandra now. "Dark spirits is a fancy term to describe spirits marked by violence. But you're not wrong that Nighthowlers turn a spirit into something similar." This was where things started to get a little tricky. "In the case of Lynx- your son, he's a little of both."

"That sheep, Bellwether wasn't it? She got to him?"

"Not unless she's pushing on 50 like we are."

"We discovered a variant of the Nighthowler serum in the collars you used to wear," Judy hurried out. She'd done that a lot whenever the subject of collars came up, as if mentioning the word would conjure up more pain for Nick. He let her - she'd make her peace with it, as he had. "We believe that's what triggered his first spate of violence."

"You've given him the antidote then? Shouldn't he be all better now?"

"It's worked on his friend," said Judy, with far too obvious hedging. Otariids was losing bits of her darkness every day, but the mechanics of that wasn't what Lysandra would be interested in.

Nick jumped in. "Did we give the antidote to your son? Yes, yes we did. Is he ready to be a civilised mammal yet? No he is not. See, whether a spirit is dark because of Nighthowlers or comes by it naturally, they have a choice. They don't have to indulge their violence." Otterton and Manchas had gone dark, but since they hadn't harmed anyone their recovery had been relatively painless. It hadn't been so for Otariids, and likely for Lynxington. "But your son has, and that's resulted in karmic entanglement with a whole lot of mammals."

Including one of the Hopps. For now, there was none of Officer Hopps in Judy's aura anymore, as it had been before they'd rediscovered Nick's run in with the ZPD.

Nick intended to keep it that way. What Lysandra didn't know wouldn't hurt her. "Your son needs to work on that before he can put his darkness behind him. But he won't. Despite the best efforts of the ZED, Exorcist Hopps here included, your son doesn't want to change his ways."

"Nick."

"That's the truth and she deserves to know it."

"I believe him." Judy did what Nick couldn't - she met Lysandra's gaze in the mirror. "You didn't have to do a thing for an old ghost, yet here you are bringing me to see my son as promised."

Nick watched as Judy's ears began to lift. "It won't be easy. He's - you've both been through a lot. It might not get any better."

Lysandra lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Knowing Lyndon, easy was never in the picture. If Lyndon wants to be stubborn about the wrong things, that's on neither you nor me exorcist. We can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink. We'll just keep doing our best."

"I'll be happy to help in any way," Judy said, as soft as when she'd first talked to Lysandra Lynxington.

"You've helped plenty. You finally gave me the chance to see my boy. Whatever happens next, I hope you remember this."

The hunched curve in Judy's shoulders started to ease. "I will. Thank you."

 

By the time they reached Koslov's, Judy's shoulders were squared and her back straight despite the weight of her sword. Or maybe she wanted to show the "ZED" emblazoned across the back of her parka to its full effect.

"We're going to die," Nick declared. "He's arranged to meet us on top of the mountain. He's going to throw us off and we're going to die."

"Let me worry about that." Despite saying that, the only thing she seemed to be worried about was the approaching cable car that would bring them to the top of the mountain. She was even ignoring the stares of the mammals that were wondering what an exorcist was doing here. "You're perfectly capable of drifting to safety."

"Oh I see how it is. You just want to throw yourself off a high place like the times with the vines and the waterfalls. I'm not sure if I should let you get in that cable car if that's what you want to do."

"Stop being such a big baby," Judy laughed. Stepping towards the cable car as it pulled to a stop dappled her in the light falling through the stain glass windows. She gestured to the door the polar bear attendant had opened for them. "Guardian Wilde."

He stepped into the cable car, then offered his hand to help her up the high step. "Exorcist Hopps."

She bounded in, and they were off.

Nick had visited Koslov often enough that he was already prepared for the snow covered ground falling away from them as they moved up the mountain. Judy wasn't. As she marvelled at the view, Nick took some time to put his nerves in perspective. He wasn't showing his darkness, and he didn't think Koslov had any more surprises left that would draw out Officer Hopps.

"I can hear you thinking all the way from here." Judy left off the view to drop into the seat next to Nick.

"Don't you ever worry about your past lives?" He avoided using the name, given names had been what brought Judy back this time. "After all, she was pretty insistent about coming to Tundratown."

"Have you noticed her?" When Nick shook his head she continued, "Then it should be fine."

"You make it sound so easy."

"That's because you make it look easy. Nick, I've seen how you've handled your darkness. If you've learnt to live with your darkness, I can manage active past lives. And I have you to watch out for me."

Nick swallowed his nervousness and his realisation that he barely knew what to do the first time. Instead he quipped, "Oof was that in the contract when I signed up to be your guardian? You keep adding things."

"I think it's more quid pro pro. Because I'll always watch out for you too."

Judy was wrong. She was the one who made things seem effortless. As she did now when the cable car hit the end of the line with a clink. "C'mon. I need you to watch my back around Koslov."

"You're the boss," said Nick, and followed.

This high, it was more apparent that thermoregulation here kept the environment at Artic winter. Judy's breath came out misted as she approached Morris Koslov on the open veranda with its wrought iron table sets. In her official exorcist mode, Judy didn't even glance at admittedly breath taking panorama stretched below them. Instead she strode past assorted guards to take the seat directly opposite Koslov. Nick drifted by her shoulder, his aura extended over Judy in a deceptively casual manner.

"Exorcist Hopps, are you aware what Snow Palace is?"

"I've come here as I am because I know this is your territory. We're here with an offer from ZED."

"Is that what the ZED does now? I thought that they pinned down whatever they didn't understand and shut it away." Knowing Koslov, the reference to the method Lynxington was sealed was intentional. The lengths he must have gone to uncover this fact didn’t bode well - Koslov was probably leaning towards tossing them off the mountain.

Judy didn't flinch. Unlike the talk with Lysandra Lynxington, Judy wasn't here to apologise. "We've put that behind us. The members of the Original 10 that escaped remain unsealed."

"A nice tidbit, but I am sure you didn't come all this way to tell me about ZED's more dignified way of treating spirits."

"In investigating the Original 10, we've discovered something that has a wider implication on Zootopia. There are a significant number of predators came about their spiritual awareness through the influence of Datura, or Nighthowlers. There was a variant of the Nighthowler serum in the collars predators were made to wear." Judy pulled out the box with the antidote that the Badger sisters had worked hard on. "ZED is offering a pre-emptive antidote to predators known to have worn collars. If you want it."

Koslov didn't say a thing, but there was a hunger in the way that he gazed at the box that would have set Nick to growling if he had directed it at Judy. Judy set the box on the table and waited.

Then Koslov snapped his fingers, and the guards around Nick and Judy left the area. Koslov had never laid a paw directly on anyone, and Nick found himself cautiously hopeful that they would not be tossed over the railing.

When Koslov spoke, it was in the low tones of someone sharing a secret. "When I first put on the collar, I had nightmares. My father assured me that it was due to the unnatural nature of the collar. But after I took off the collar, the nightmares continued. That was when Mr Big offered to train me. And now here I am."

He stood, drawing himself to his full height. "Those responsible for the collars may have wished to see us beat down. Diminished. But we have become stronger instead. I do not wish to gamble my strength on your antidote."

He shoved the box back to Judy. Judy stopped it with a paw without taking her eyes off Koslov. "There's still the chance you might become a dark spirit upon death," she warned him. "We'll be in touch on other alternative precautions the ZED might advise."

"I understand, Exorcist Hopps." He bowed, a grave dip of his head. Judy mimicked the gesture. "For the next ZED visit, perhaps you could consider something less flashy. I'm sure some neutral arrangement can be made. For today, you may invite yourself out anytime."

Then Koslov too left. Nick whistled once he was sure Koslov couldn't hear. "All that and he actually allowed you to stick around. He must really like you Carrots."

"If the _old family friend_ says so, he must be right." She cupped the box between her hands. "Most predators so far haven't accepted the antidote."

"After learning the government has been pouring goop into our systems, the first instinct isn't to pour more goop in."

Judy pocketed the box and moved over to lean on the railings. This high up, the other visitors to Snow Palace were little dots against the artificial background. "There's a lot of work ahead."

"If it's anything like today? We'll manage. It's just talking to a bunch of mammals. Either we'll find that the antidote wasn't necessary at all, or mammals will start to see the benefits. Give it time Whiskers."

"When did you become the optimistic one - Ack!" Judy shrieked, as any bunny might when a handful of snow was dropped down their back.

"C'mon Exorcist Hopps," Nick chided as he scooped up another handful of snow. "You said it yourself. I'm not dark, you're not some dick from the 1960s, and Koslov didn't toss us off the mountain. Save the difficult thoughts for another day."

Her foot thumped hard enough to send up puffs of snow. "I'm thinking that in the 50 over years, how is it that no one has taught you to make a proper snowball?"

"Oh is this how it's going to be Fluff?" Nick started to scrunch snow together. "Be prepared - " A snowball, soft enough to fall apart upon impact, hit Nick on the arm.

"That was a warning salvo," said Judy, already prepping the next snowball as she put more distance between them. "From the ten year straight champion of snowball fights honed against over 200 siblings. Be prepared to eat snow."

"Hmm." Nick surveyed the remnants of the snowball. "It seemed awfully like you going soft on me, bunny."

"Shut up and take your best shot, fox."

"Since you asked so nicely." Nick drew his paw back and let his snowball fly. Laughter rose from their little perch on the top of the mountain, the concerns of the world far below them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who have stuck with me through this verse, thank you so much. It's been a fun five months in this attempt to figure out where the ghosts of the collars storyline lurked in Zootopia, and then laying those ghosts to rest. Timeline-wise, this will be the last story in the Wilde Spirit verse. There may be small side stories here and there when they pop up in my head :)
> 
> A bonus for those who finished: here's [the playlist for all the songs of this fic](http://open.spotify.com/user/raynoskai/playlist/7ieDdyAAv4aVkxTZRfNz3f). Every song matches the chapter named after it. I hope you enjoy the music along with the fic.
> 
> See you in other Zootopia fics, whatever they might be!


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